What is the best packaging for baby food?

There’s a lot to consider when designing packaging for baby food, including what parents will feel comfortable giving to their children. Creating the perfect packaging is all about finding the right mix of safety, recyclability, and mess reduction. Here are some of our most effective and safe baby food packaging ideas.

Glass Jars

Glass jars are perhaps the most classic packaging strategy for baby food, and it’s no wonder why. This option bears the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics for storage and food preparation over plastic containers. On top of that, glass jars are easily recyclable, and they eliminate the risk of plastic chemicals leaching into food.

However, you should remember that glass jars are much heavier than pouches or plastic containers—when you hand a heavy object to a child, there’s a much higher chance of a slip.

While a plastic container falling from a high chair might make a mess, there’s no chance of glass shards flying all over the place. Plus, heavier containers require more money to ship them from your manufacturing center.

Plastic Containers

Right off the bat, it’s clear that plastic containers and glass jars fall at opposite ends of the spectrum—glass jars are heavy yet great for storage, and plastic containers are lightweight yet lacking for storage purposes. The reduced chance of breakability (and if they do break, they break safely) is no small thing, and these containers are usually recyclable.

On the other hand, if you don’t use higher-quality plastics, you may introduce harmful chemicals into food, including BPA and phthalates. If the food requires heating, the chances of leaching chemicals increase.

Pouches

Pouches offer a healthy mix of the advantages of plastic and glass. First, they’re lightweight like plastic but they don’t contain plastic’s potential chemicals. This is due to Recycling Code 5, which requires pouches to have polypropylene lining.

The one slight drawback of pouches is that they’re not currently locally recyclable. But as their recycling is getting easier, this option offers the best overall results! If you’re in the market for product pouch packaging, reach out to us—we can help.

Now that you know these effective and safe baby food packaging ideas, create the best design possible and help parents feed their kids without hassles!

 A Comparison Between Different Baby Food Storage Containers for Homemade Purees

Which is the best container or reusable pouch for my baby - you decide. 

Whether you’re making homemade baby food (you super mom you) or, like 99% of us – using a mix of convenient baby food purees and homemade – the question of the what are the best baby food containers or reusable pouch comes up at least once when you’re starting solids. When I started using Amara baby foodon the go – I wanted to find a container that was safe to store the baby food in – and easy to clean and fill.

There are a bunch of different kinds of baby containers available on the market. They range from your traditional glass baby food containers or jars; to plastic snap top containers; to silicone or plastic re-usable food pouches. So, I did what any nervous parent would do and I bought all the baby food containers on Amazon. Well, I picked the highest ranking ones and tried them out with different homemade baby food purees to see which one was actually the easiest to use. 

All of the containers below were marked freezer safe and most were dishwasher safe. The reusable plastic food pouches all had the double zipper seal to prevent potential diaper bag explosions (you already have enough diaper blowouts to clean up). The materials were either silicone, plastic or glass containers and were all marked food safe. They are all stand-alone great choices, so we wanted to dive in what makes the difference when you’re making homemade baby purees or want to send Amara to your baby’s daycare or use on the go.

We boiled it down to:

• How easy is each baby food container to fill with the puree?
• How easy is the container to clean?
• How much puree you could fit inside?
• How “cute” is the actual container (Silly, but who doesn’t want their baby food container to look as good as it tastes! Right?)

We didn’t research the best freezer trays or blenders for homemade baby food because that’s for a whole other blog. We just focused on the best containers to use for homemade baby food purees when you’re on the go. 

The quick version:

 

Squirt

Weesprout

Baby Brezza

Squoosi

Squeasy

Glass baby food jar

Type

Silicone pouch with spoon

Plastic food pouch

Plastic food pouch

Plastic food pouch

Silicone food pouch

Glass jar

Ease of filling

 

 

Easiest 

 

 

 

Ease of cleaning

 

 

 

 

 

Easiest

Style

 

 

 

 

Cutest

 

Size of opening

2 inches, circular

3.5 inches, bottom zipper

6 inches, side zipper

3.2 inches, bottom zipper

1 inch, circular

3 inch, circular

 

Below, we looked at these plastic, glass and silicone baby food storage containers in more detail:

 

Boon Squirt Silicone Baby Food Dispensing Spoon with a pouch

This one was one of the most innovative reusable pouches we saw. You fill the silicone pouch with the baby food puree and there is a spoon at the end so when you squeeze the pouch, the puree comes out onto the spoon.

Ease of filling: Wide opening (almost 2 inches), moderately easy to fill without spilling but need a funnel or a spoon

Ease of cleaning: Dishwasher safe with a wide opening that’s easy to hand wash too

Pros: Allows for spoon feeding the puree with the convenience of a pouch

Cons: It comes with a cap for storage, but I wouldn’t trust a full pouch in my bag without worrying about it spilling or squeezing out.

Holds: 3 ounces of baby food

 

Weesprout reusable squeeze food pouches:

This is the typical plastic reusable pouch made for fruit, grain and veggie purees / homemade baby food. The big variation among all these pouches seems to be how you fill them. The weesprout pouches fill on the bottom of the pouch (versus the side). I found it was easy to fill because the zipper was smaller and easier to close but a bit harder to clean than the re-usable baby pouches that filled by the side.

Ease of filling: Wide opening on the bottom, easy to fill without spilling

Ease of cleaning: Dishwasher safe, wide opening but hard to get to clean the pouch tip well

Pros: Cute earthy design, family owned company from Tennessee

Cons: Easier to fill but a bit harder to clean than other ones

Holds: 3.4 oz of baby food

 

Baby Brezza reusable food pouch

I was hesitant about the shape of this one when I started because it’s more of a rectangle pouch than the other ones that look like the squeezy pouches. That being said, after filling a bunch of reusable pouches with puree – this one was by FAR the easiest to do fast, without a mess and fill a bunch of pouches at a time. The secret? The bottom gusset.

This pouch fills by a side zipper and it has a gusset on the other side that is wide enough to allow the pouch to be stable as you fill it. Unlike the other options, you can place the pouch side up on the table with the funnel they provide, and use one hand to hold the bowl or blender (where you made the homemade puree) and then use the other hand to scrape out the puree into the actual pouch. The other pouches I had to hold the pouch open in one hand and awkwardly find a way to put the puree into the pouch or someone else needed to hold the pouch open while I scrapped the puree in.

The easiest way to explain this is a photo:

 

Ease of filling: Wide opening on the side, easy to fill without spilling. Pouch stands up and stays stable on countertop without you needing to hold the pouch as you fill (hands free filling)

Ease of cleaning: Dishwasher safe, wide opening and easy to clean and get in the corners

Pros: Really easy to fill a bunch of the pouches all at once since they can stand by themselves as you fill with both hands

Cons: Bigger pouch for smaller hands

Holds: up to 7 oz of baby food

  

Squooshi reusable food pouches:

This one was almost exactly like the Weesprout food pouchesabove but had cartoon animals on each pouch. The pouches had the same bottom opening that the weesprout pouches but had more of an ergonomic shape for baby to hold. The plastic felt a tiny bit thinner than the weesprout pouches, but it was barely noticeable.

Ease of filling: Opening on the bottom, easy to fill without spilling

Ease of cleaning: Dishwasher safe, wide opening but hard to get to clean the pouch tip well

Pros: Had a cute homemade baby food recipe on the box package and cartoon animals 

Cons: Not as easy to fill as the Baby Brezza ones

Holds: 3.4 oz of baby food

 

Squeasy silicone reusable food pouch

These are the most stylish look for homemade purees. They come in bright colors and different sizes. They are great for purees but can also be used for smoothies or liquids because they have a no leak cap. Of all the pouch options they were one of the only ones that stand on their own once they are filled which is nice if you’re feeding in a highchair. 

Personally, I love the silicone bright color pouches visually so they won "most stylish" reusable pouch in my book. If you're doing homemade baby food purees every day though they may get expensive or tedious to fill. 

Ease of filling: Smaller opening, fills easily with more liquidy purees

Ease of cleaning: Doesn’t say dishwasher safe but would be easy enough to wash with warm water

Pros: Super cute colors

Cons: Not as easy to fill as the Baby Brezza ones because the hole is pretty small and circular, need a funnel or the purees need to be super liquidy

Holds: Different sizes: 3.5 oz, 6 oz and 16 oz

 

Glass baby food jar:

I couldn’t go without mentioning your good ol’ glass baby food jar. The most timeless design, the baby food jars have been around for a hundred years for a reason. They are easy to clean and easy to fill. I found some options on Amazon where the top of the jar clasped to the glass part so the top doesn’t come loose in your bag.

 

Ease of filling: Easy, especially if you make the puree in the bowl

Ease of cleaning: Dishwasher safe, easiest to clean

Pros: Timeless design, stacks easily in the fridge or freezer

Cons: Heavier to carry around than the pouches

Holds: Different sizes: 3.5 oz, 4 oz and more

 

Overall ranking:

Baby Breeza food pouches: Easiest to use if you’re consistently making homemade baby food or Amaraand want it in pouch form

Squeasy silicone pouches: Most stylish look for on the go baby purees

Squirt Baby Food Dispensing Spoon with a pouch:Most innovative format, great option if you’re looking for spoon feeding with the convenience of a pouch

 

Now, I know homemade baby food is the golden standard for moms these days when starting solids. I mean, hello pinterest dreams 👋 👋 But, at Amara, we know sometimes homemade is more of a dream than reality. That's why Amara baby food brings you all the benefits of fresh, without starting from scratch.

Shop our organic, 100% whole fruit, vegetable and plant based protein meals here. Enjoy an easy transition to solid foods by mixing in breast milk too!