Banker turned baby food maker sees start-up success
Couple’s business backgrounds and connections key ingredients, along with organic produce
Piers Buck never planned to leave the world of investment banking – especially to become a baby food maker.
Yet Buck - who quit his 16-year-long career in finance just roughly two years back to start Little Freddie, an organic baby food company named after his son – is completely in his element, eyes lighting up as he talks about the apples from the Dolomites region of Italy and salmon from Ireland’s Donegal county that he uses in his products.
“I spent the first six to seven months in Europe meeting farmers, suppliers, finding and sourcing ingredients,” Buck said. “Every single recipe is exclusively ours. I’m not willing to source with anyone I haven’t met.”
Buck started Little Freddie with his wife in December 2013, when their son was about six months old and their daughter was about two. Making meals that their children would eat was challenging, yet they did not like the baby food options in the market. Then came the idea for Little Freddie: baby food that tastes good, is sealed in easily kept pouches and made from European organic produce.
Since its June launch, the company now has 14 different products available and sells in 28 stores through 11 retailers in Hong Kong, including City’super and Eugene Baby. They also have online sales in mainland China and Germany.
“We thought it was a good opportunity to try something new,” Buck said. “We half-jokingly call my son the chief tasting officer. Little Freddie is really a combination of the love for my children and the love for food that I have.”
I was very blinkered for a long time because the problem with banking is you’re paid so much, it’s so hard to leave