When Cow's Milk Doesn't Cut it with Simona Irwin of Kabrita USA

Simona Irwin (0s):

How much heart is behind this. How much are people thinking about the ingredients, but also how much are they really thinking about the mom and that kind of feeding journey? And we wanted to be able to relate to the mom on a personal level.

Katie Ferraro (15s):

Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the baby led weaning made easy podcast, I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning. Well, hey guys and welcome back. So all month long in my interview episodes for this month, I'm going to be highlighting female run feeding companies. So these are brands run by women in the world of feeding, who I'm just fascinated with.

Katie Ferraro (56s):

And today I'm honored to interview Simona Irwin. Who's the general manager of Kabrita USA, and Kabrita makes a line of gentle goat milk based foods. They offer a new choice in formula feeding, marrying this ideal of all natural, which we all want with the rigor and safety of science, which of course we know we all need. So Kabrita USA, it's a hundred percent women run company led by moms. Simone is going to be sharing a little bit about how she came to work with the brand, how she discovered their products when her children were babies. And then what they're doing as a team to support moms who are exploring different options in feeding. So I personally have used Kabrita products for my own babies who had varying skin issues like eczema and some gut stuff from cows milk products have actually written a lot about this on my blog and I'm going to link to some of those blog posts as well if you guys are interested in learning more about how you can use these products, if you have a little one for whom cows milk just doesn't sit well.

Katie Ferraro (1m 52s):

So I do want to point out that the Kabrita goat milk nutrition products are not appropriate or to be used for children who have cow's milk protein allergies actually did a whole separate podcast episode about called goat milk, gut health and skin symptoms and that was with Annie Salsberg, she's actually the medical director for Kabrita USA. So in that episode, she went like deep in the science about how goat milk proteins and the curds are handled differently by the baby's stomach that's episode 62. So if you guys are exploring goat milk options, you want to learn more about goat, milk, nutrition, go listen to that episode with Annie Salsberg from Kabrita, but in today's episode, I'm chatting with Simona Irwin. Again, she's the GM of Kabrita USA, so she's going to be talking about how, like for many Americans Kabrita is a relatively new brand.

Katie Ferraro (2m 35s):

You might not have heard of it. Simona is going to explain they've really only been available in the U.S Since Kabrita USA launched in 2014, but Kabrita goat milk formula is approved, has been used by parents for a very long time around the world in places like China and Russia, the middle east, South Africa, across Europe, you name it. So you know we have kind of a global audience. You might be familiar with it, but Americans oftentimes are not even familiar with the idea of goat milk formula or when it would be used. So if you are a family looking for an alternative to cows milk nutrition products, you sometimes will come across Kabrita when you're doing research on your own. So I wanted to have Simona on to talk a little bit about why it is so hard to get a new type of formula, like goat milk formula approved for infant use in the U.S and how it differs from the other formula products on the market today.

Katie Ferraro (3m 19s):

So I just really admire the entire Kabrita female run team, their mission. I personally love their goat cheese puffs for baby led weaning. I am an affiliate for Kabrita, which I want to disclose as well, but again, just really admire their company. And so I'm interested to learn more in talking about the inner workings of the business. So with no further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Simona Irwin, who is the general manager of kabrita USA. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today, Simona.

Simona Irwin (3m 49s):

Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.

Katie Ferraro (3m 51s):

So our audience knows a little bit about Kabrita from the introduction and I've done a previous episodes about goat milk nutrition, but could you tell us about yourself and what your role is there at Kabrita?

Simona Irwin (4m 3s):

Yes, for sure. So I am the general manager at Kabrita USA. I run the north American business and right now that's really just the U.S market at this point. I was actually our first employee. So back in 2013, there was two co-founders and then they had hired me to really create the strategy and bring the product to market. So my background has always been in natural foods and organic foods. I started my career at whole foods, which I loved. I had become vegetarian when I was 15, which was quite strange back then, way back and just developed an early love for natural foods and the kind of this health food world.

Simona Irwin (4m 48s):

So I started with whole foods and then got further into brand management for other natural products. And then eventually ended up at Kabrita after I had had my first son.

Katie Ferraro (4m 58s):

That's really Cool. You were the first employee of Kabrita USA. I did not know that. So when was that? How many years ago did it come to the U.S market?

Simona Irwin (5m 8s):

That was in 2013 and then, but early 2014, we were on the shelf of every whole food store. So it was pretty quick launch for us and a pretty quick uptake for the market to people were really excited for our product.

Katie Ferraro (5m 21s):

And I know I've worked with some of your other team members out of Canada. Does Kabrita USA also cover Canada or no?

Simona Irwin (5m 29s):

Not yet. We decided to first launch in the U.S market just because it was a bigger market. And really, we had made a pretty big investment in a clinical study that we're doing there for our infant formula. And so we decided to kind of put our eggs in that basket for now. So we have part of our team that works from Toronto, Canada, and then we have other people who work freelance in the U.S

Katie Ferraro (5m 53s):

So I think Cabrita is a brand that parents and caregivers kind of discover when they start looking for alternative cow's milk, be it for any number of reasons their little one might not be doing well with cow's milk. So if they're considering an alternative goat milk as an alternative, they find Kabrita, I know it's not necessarily a household name in the U S if this is like the first time you've ever even looked for a cows milk alternative. So could you tell us how the product is maybe different or marketed different in the U.S Versus Europe? I know it's really confusing, but parents ask all the time, like how come people in Europe have had access to this for so long, and this is new to Americans. What's the story there?

Simona Irwin (6m 27s):

Yeah, that's a great question. So there's a few kind of pieces that fold into that. I guess one is that I'll share just like a little bit of, you know, the reason why we founded the business. So I think as most moms know, you know, we have this expectation of how a feeding journey is gonna be when we have babies and we're going to be perfect at everything. And our baby is going to breastfeed perfectly and everything is, we're just perfect at everything, but of course, then you have your first baby and like everything falls apart and it's totally different. And you know, what I found than what the original co-founders really found was that if there was a struggle in your feeding journey and you had to, or chose to use formula for whatever reason, there was really limited options in the us.

Simona Irwin (7m 18s):

And they just didn't understand why, you know, why, why can you get things in New Zealand that you can't get here? So, you know, they kind of dug into that deeper. One of them ended up just basically trying to create her own goat milk formula, but of course, it's just so much more complex than that. And that's just not something that's quite easy to do and be able to measure every micronutrient

Katie Ferraro (7m 40s):

Yeah replicating breast milk is kind of like an advanced skill.

Simona Irwin (7m 44s):

So that didn't work. So then of course, just exactly what your question was, was, you know, what was the next step? And it was defined that there are countries, you know, if your baby has a challenge in the U.S with cow milk, you really don't have that many alternatives. You can go on to a soy formula. You can go on to extensively hydrolyzed formula, but there it's just, you know, sometimes they don't work. So they kind of looked kind of far and wide and eventually found this company called us nutria from Holland. That was originally a dairy company for over a hundred years, and then started to create infant formula made out of cow milk and then started to make infant formula made out of goat's milk.

Katie Ferraro (8m 23s):

And for our audience who might not be familiar with the differences, what are some of the benefits of goat milk over cow milk, if your child does not do well with cow milk products?

Simona Irwin (8m 33s):

Yeah. So, you know, for a lot of people, I think myself included, you know, when I first, I was lucky with my first son that I was able to just breastfeed, but then when I moved on to introducing cow's milk to him, he got eczema and we just couldn't get rid of it. And at first I didn't correlate it to anything in particular, but eventually we did some kind of tinkering with his diet, took the milk out, replaced it with goat milk and goat milk foods, and the eczema went away. So, you know, right now, of course we can't make any specific claims around eczema, you know, it's all just personal experience, but what we found overall and through some of the key studies and some of the trials that the company has done is that the goat milk just digests at a quicker rate.

Simona Irwin (9m 20s):

And it's also just easier for a baby to break down because of the curds and also the type of protein too.

Katie Ferraro (9m 28s):

And we've had Annie from Kabrita on to talk about goat milk nutrition, and she kind of explained the difference between the curd size. And she got like pretty technical as she does. So if you guys are interested in learning more about goat milk nutrition, be sure to check out that episode with Annie Salsberg. And what is her title with you guys now? Is she the, I know she used to be the medical director, but I think it's changed now. So I don't want to

Simona Irwin (9m 51s):

Annie now runs both of the consumer and medical marketing and education sides of Kabrita. So she's our senior marketing manager.

Katie Ferraro (9m 58s):

And if you guys want to check out that episode, it's called goat milk gut health and skin symptoms with Annie Salsberg, that's episode 62. And I'll link that up on the show notes for this episode as well. If you go to BLW podcasts.com. Simona, could you then just share a little bit about how the product is different in the United States and maybe where you're working towards for regulation to have it as an infant formula?

Simona Irwin (10m 22s):

Yes, definitely. That's like really from the beginning, that's been, you know, why the business was created and where we wanted to go. Initially we were a little bit naive in terms of the length of time that that would take, so we are, you know, started the clinical trial and thinking, okay, this is going to take one or two years, but of course, it's, you know, now seven years later and we have finished it, which is exciting. And we are kind of moving through that process. But you know, of course we know in the meantime that people have started our product at an earlier age, you know, we see that in our reviews, we know of course that our product is, does meet the FDA standard in terms of the nutritional aspects of the formula.

Simona Irwin (11m 4s):

But what we've always wanted to do is just really ensure that we went through the right avenue and just take the time to get the FDA approval so we can sell it as an infant formula in the U.S. Something that's interesting to note is of course, that we Kabrita has been selling internationally for over 10 years. So we sell in China, we sell it in Russia. We sell it in Africa, in Brazil, in Mexico, Europe, and the middle east. And we've met the standards in all of those countries, of course, for their infant formula regulations. But the U.S is just truly unique in their requirement of a clinical trial with very particular criteria.

Simona Irwin (11m 48s):

And that's why there is such a barrier to entry in the U S for new brands to come in. And that's why it's been dominated for so long by four major players.

Katie Ferraro (11m 58s):

I used Kabrita goat milk formula. One of my quadruplets had pretty bad eczema around like the 9, 10 month mark. And I switched him to that. It was pumping as much as I could, but I didn't have enough breast milk for him. And when we did cows milk stuff, his skin was kind of funky. And I found that, and I've actually shared a lot about this. I've written a couple of blog posts about it, and I'll link to those in the show notes for this episode, but we had success with the goat milk formula for his skin stuff. And then we continued to use your goat milk food. So I was curious if you could share a little bit beyond the goat milk formula, what other goat milk foods do you guys make and why?

Simona Irwin (12m 34s):

Yeah, so we were really excited to launch our goat milk foods. For me, this was especially exciting part of the business because it was, you know, close to home for me because my kids didn't eat any cow milk dairy. So we wanted basically to make a favorites that, you know, that people feed their babies, but without cow milk and instead with goat milk. So I think really one of the most exciting ones that's just been so popular have been our go-to cheese puffs. So I think everyone knows, you know, a regular cow milk cheesy, or the little puffs that you feed to your babies. And so we were really excited to offer really a European sourced goat milk version with very few ingredients, you know, where people could have that for their child too.

Simona Irwin (13m 23s):

We also have our porridges, which are also quite unique. So in Europe, it's much more common to actually have milk in the porridges for babies already as a premixed product in the U.S we're actually the only product on the market that has both the grains and the goat milk in the actual cereals. So just instant ready to go. So it's just nice convenient things for moms and whether or not they have chemical sensitivities. They're delicious.

Katie Ferraro (13m 50s):

I have seven children and my I've, so I have a Singleton. I have quadruplets, and then I have twins. So with our quadruplets, we had used your formula products, but it was prior to any other products came out. But when my twins were doing baby led weaning was right when the goat cheese puffs came out. And I really liked them because I teach a hundred first foods approach to baby led weaning, where we encourage babies to eat a hundred different foods before they turn one. Goat cheese is always a challenging one because of course, typical goat cheese is way too salty for babies to have. And so the nice thing about the goat cheese puffs is that they're formulated for babies. And these are not you guys like the little star puffs that we, we recommend not feeding the babies that are actually just, you know, plain starch and could actually be a choking hazard. These are longer size. They're about the size of your adult pinky finger, which is perfect for baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (14m 33s):

I think of them as like Cheeto size babies can scoop and pick them up by themselves. So even at six and seven, eight months of age before they had their pincer grasp. So they promote independent feeding, and then they don't have any added sugar in them, which is essential because we don't feed added sugar to babies. Although you'd be surprised if you look at the baby food aisle, they're full of products with added sugar, which is, we don't do that for babies. So I love your product. And also very, very small amount of sodium, just enough for preservative to keep it shelf stable. But the goat cheese puffs, I think have been really important for the field of infant feeding because it allows your baby to try this important new flavor. Goat cheeses are really unique flavor, but without all the salt and the sugar. And I know in the U.S at least I, I live in San Diego and I see them at our sprouts, which I think is great.

Katie Ferraro (15m 17s):

Are you guys where in like the retail world are the goat cheese puffs in the porch is available?

Simona Irwin (15m 23s):

So any sprouts, any whole foods market, some kind of local health food stores carry them too. We're at Wegmans, some Raley's. And then we have a great presence, obviously, online, Amazon, Walmart, and on KabritaUSA.com. So

Katie Ferraro (15m 40s):

So this month we're sharing all about different feeding companies that are female run, female led. And I know from I've done a fair amount of work with Kabrita over the years. And I just know from experience that your team is entirely female. So could you tell us a little bit about your team, your brand's philosophy and how does that kind of lend to the support that you guys provide to the moms in your community?

Simona Irwin (16m 0s):

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think one of the most interesting things when we started the business was really looking at the competitors and, you know, all of them were pharmaceutical companies. Most of them were run by men.

Katie Ferraro (16m 13s):

Everything in the baby world is run by old white men. It's

Simona Irwin (16m 17s):

Very true. And so we just really questioned, you know, how much heart is behind this, you know, how much are people thinking about the ingredients and not just the ingredients, of course, that matters to all moms, but also how much are they really thinking about the moms and that kind of feeding journey. And we wanted to be able to relate to the mum on a personal level. And so, you know, at the beginning, it was like a bit of an accident that the team was all women. It was just kind of how it happened. And then it really became something quite special over the years. Of course, you know, we've had different men that work for us and people come in and out of the business, but primarily that the company is just run by a group of women and mostly moms.

Simona Irwin (17m 1s):

And, you know, I think one of my big passions through businesses really, to mentor women and really help them achieve greater levels of success in business and give them opportunities that they may not have had. And so one of our core values is that we offer all of our employees different educational allowances, so they can really, you know, get to that next level of business that they might not have been able to do on their own and really get into those roles that had primarily been held by men. A great example with Kabrita is like the logistics role where traditionally that's just a very male oriented role. And, you know, we kind of mentored someone from scratch.

Simona Irwin (17m 43s):

Who's now has a supply chain management degree and is really thriving in that role, which has been just so nice to see. So kind of right across board, we try to empower women, our customers, and then also our employees.

Katie Ferraro (17m 55s):

Are you part of the team based in Toronto?

Simona Irwin (17m 59s):

Yes.

Katie Ferraro (17m 59s):

So I have died because you know, like American maternity versus Canadian maternity, there was someone on your team. I can't remember who, but I was working with. And I was like, I feel like this person's been on maternity forever. And then someone told me what the typical Canadian maternity policy as it, it is like, it's amazing. We had another mom, who's a, she's a veterinarian, excuse me. She was on maternity leave for like six months, but she's like, I'm starting solids with my baby and I'm still on maternity. It's like, you guys are so lucky.

Simona Irwin (18m 23s):

It's so true. We actually, it was recently changed. So we actually, our maternity leave is now 18 months is what's available in Canada. And so it was also one of the things that really drove me when I found out more about the U S maternity leave and also moms choices and really breastfeeding shaming and stuff. And I just thought, you know, how unfortunate for a whole country to be set up in a way that just puts so much pressure and how could a mum possibly meet all of these demands while not having any support to be at home with her kids. And, you know, that's another big driver for us at Kabrita, we are like how can we make this easy? And how can we make a mum feel really good about her choices?

Simona Irwin (19m 6s):

Because she might not have the choice to be home for six weeks, six months, you know, let alone 16, but you know, so how can we make this journey a little bit easier? And so she can just feel also confident in her choices.

Katie Ferraro (19m 20s):

And one thing I know you guys have definitely done to make life easier is I think you have a free trial offer that is I'm like, how do they make money with this? Like, it is one of the most generous offers out there. People are considering, or they're having gut stuff for their little one with cow's milk or skin stuff. I always say, just check out the Kabrita free trial offers. So if you guys are not familiar with this, it's basically $30 worth of goat milk nutrition products though. Kabrita has a package of all the products that Simona was describing, and you basically just pay the cost of shipping and handling, which I believe the last time I did, it was just five U.S dollars. So I would imagine that that's, that's really hard from a financial standpoint for you guys to support, except that it must work or you wouldn't keep doing it.

Katie Ferraro (20m 1s):

And it's a great way for parents to be introduced to this, these products that might help their child during this crucial point in their development, when you still want to be feeding a variety of foods, but cow's milk for whatever reason is not working. So could you just share a little bit more about that, like free trial offer? I'm so curious about it cause no one else in the feeding industry, does anything even close to what you guys are offering?

Simona Irwin (20m 22s):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of our core values is of course, like generosity and we kind of have this saying, when you give more, you get more. And we all really live by that at our company. We know as moms that when your child has a sensitivity or even just when they're starting to eat, you know, you're buying all this stuff they're eating at once and then they're like throwing it at you. And then, you know, it's like a big waste. So, you know, we really wanted to provide a value to the customer and allow them to really try it before they invest their money. And that, and really that's what the trial offer is. So yeah, it's four 99. You're just paying for shipping and handling and you're getting the products, but then you're also getting some coupons too.

Simona Irwin (21m 4s):

So if the formula or the products do work for your family, then you can either go into a sprouts or whole foods or come online and repurchase it.

Katie Ferraro (21m 12s):

Thank you so much for sharing all of this. I love to hear about kind of the inner workings of the businesses that we work with and the products that we use or we might be considering. So thank you for sharing that. And if you don't mind, could you just tell our audience where they can go to learn more about Kabrita's goat milk nutrition products?

Simona Irwin (21m 30s):

Yes, absolutely. So you can come to our website, which is Kabrita usa.com, K A B R I T A U S A.com. And then also any social channel at hellokabrita

Katie Ferraro (21m 44s):

Thank you so much Simona. I really appreciate your time.

Simona Irwin (21m 48s):

Thank you.

Katie Ferraro (21m 48s):

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that chat with Simona Irwin, the general manager of Kabrita USA. I love that she shared that one of their corporate values was generosity. And like I began because I've worked with them. I really, really do love their team. I am super jealous of their maternity leave policy. And on top of that though, to hear the term generosity described in the same sentence with a formula company like that doesn't happen very often. So just a different type of company, a different type of product. I'm going to link up all of the resources that Simona shared on the show notes for this episode, which will be at blwpodcast.com forward slash one, two zero. They do have that free trial offer, which has, I think it's a canister of the formula, some samples of their porridge, some samples of their goat cheese puffs.

Katie Ferraro (22m 31s):

And I think it's $5 for shipping and handling. So I'll link to that as well. If you want to check out their products for your baby, if you have a baby who doesn't do well on cow's milk. And also don't forget episode number 62 was also about goat milk, talking more about the gut health and the skin symptoms that was with Annie Salsberg, their medical director. So if you're interested in learning more, that's another good one to check out. I'll link that up again. BLW podcast.com forward slash one, two, zero. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.