KAJANG, June 11 — Busy mothers will appreciate the convenience of Fawwaz The Little Kitchen’s range of ready-to-eat baby food.

It was started about a year and half ago by Mahfudzah Mustafha who named the company after her baby son.

The company has around 22 items of food and fruit powders, freeze-dried fruits and vegetable-flavoured dry macaroni. All the items are free of sugar, salt, preservatives and artificial colouring,

These different fruit powders are used to make baby juice or batter for pancakes and other desserts.

"I feel that there are more working mums who don’t have time to cook so this makes it easier for them to handle. The baby food is great for travelling. For example, when travelling, where are we going to find fresh vegetables, right? So I suggest just sprinkling the powder on porridge,” she explained.

After she finished her Masters in entrepreneurship at UKM, Mahfudzah decided to pursue the business actively.

Using her son as a taste tester, Madfudzah first started out with frozen apple puree. After six months, she stopped it.

The homemade macaroni is a hit among mothers with babies aged eight months and above (left). Fawwaz The Little Kitchen also sources for extra virgin olive oil from Spain (right).

"Working from home, delivery for frozen food is tricky since it’s not as fresh. Learning from that, I started researching into ways to keep the food fresh and make it easy for travel,” she said.

She turned to dehydrating the food after researching on the Internet and through trial and error.

The process for her powders is a three-step one. First, she boils or steams the raw ingredients. Only the vegetables, mushrooms and cheese are left in their natural state.

The next step is drying in a dehydrator for about 15 to 20 hours. It is important that it is completely dry or else mould will form.

Fawwaz The Little Kitchen baby food powders are free of preservatives, colourings and salt.

Once dried, it is blended into powder form.  She uses meats that are all halal certified and completely injection-free. For the fish powder, they use dory and the cheese powder is made from block cheese.

The powder can be used as a flavouring for porridge, milk or cooked with other food. As there is no MSG, you can taste the real goodness of the ingredients.

Once you open the packaging, you need to use it within six months. If you use the powder every day, Mahfudzah estimates it will take about two to three months to finish.

"The first product we released was the anchovy powder where the fish is sourced from Sabah and is grade AA. Then we came up with the chicken powder which is free from any injections. After that, we released the veggie powder where we put in five vegetables such as spinach, sawi, broccoli, daun sup and spring onions,” said Mahfudzah.

Subsequently they released three more flavours: Meat, fish, mushroom and cheese.

Mahfudzah uses pisang berangan for the freeze-dried banana snack.

Seven-month-old babies can start consuming the anchovy, chicken and veggie powders. Mahfudzah recommends cheese, mushroom, trio veggie (sweet corn, carrots and peas) and meat powders for babies eight months old and above.

The fish powder is only recommended for 10-month-olds onwards because some children may be sensitive to fish.

The best-selling flavours for the powders are anchovy, chicken, veggie and meat.

There is also a range of homemade macaroni with carrot, pumpkin and spinach flavours. The trio is a mix of the three vegetable flavours that are also their best sellers.

For the pasta, Mahfudzah recommends it be eaten by 8-month-olds while toothless babies can only eat the blended boiled pasta.  You can also add any of the powders to complete the meal.

Freeze-dried fruits like bananas, peach, apricot, strawberries and apples are also popular with their customers. Mahfudzah uses pisang berangan. "It retains its original taste because we don’t add anything to it,” said Mahfudzah.

A demo where water is added to the instant brown rice together with Meat Powder, Veggie Powder and Cheese Powder.

They also have fruit powders made with different types of fruits like red coloured dragon fruit, mango and apricot. You can mix the powder with water to make a juice for the baby. Otherwise, add it to pancakes, ice cream or any other desserts for your young ones.

Mahfudzah has six staff who help her with production and packing. She oversees the day-to-day operations, sales and marketing.

Usually her customers come to know of the company via Instagram even though she has set up a website.

Fawwaz’s customers are mostly young working mothers from Selangor and Johor Baru. Although there is no minimum order for shipping, it’s best if you order more to save on postage.

For West Malaysia the shipping costs RM10 while for East Malaysia it’s RM19. Fawwaz ships every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Mahfudzah also uploads simple recipes on social media. Currently, Mahfudzah is working with a trio of mothers from Negeri Sembilan, Perak and Selangor to develop recipes for her brand. Mahfudzah plans to launch her own cookbook and include nutrition values in the packaging.

Other future plans include getting a halal certification which means they will need to move to a bigger factory. Also in the pipeline are savoury snacks made out of potatoes and sweet potatoes, instant white rice, oats and barley.

Instant brown rice mix topped with Meat Powder for a quick, easy recipe for busy mothers.

The food is not just limited to babies as it is suitable even for the elderly.

And as Mahfudzah’s son grows, Fawwaz will also follow in his footsteps to move up from baby food to toddler food.

To order contact Fawwaz The Little Kitchen at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FawwazKitchen/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fawwaz_thelittle_kitchen_hq/

Prices start from RM17 onwards for the products