Baby Food

When Fred Burke invested in a frog-breeding venture in China last year, he planned to export the critters for discerning palates in France and the United States. But frogs, known here as "heaven's chicken," fetch a better price in China. So Burke and his partners began hawking their wares domestically. Now they sell to 48 hotels in Shanghai and jokingly call themselves "Frogs 'R Us."

JUST when you were getting used to the cup of crayons and the special "kid friendly" menu, there's a new wave of chefs offering more sophisticated choices for your kids. No longer will you glance quickly at their mac & cheese (spelled just so) or hamburger and fries and offer up the bottle of ketchup. Now you may even long for a bite, and perhaps while your child is looking elsewhere, grab a piece of their tender filet mignon or twirl your fork in their exceedingly creamy fettuccini Alfredo.

Gerber Products Co., the dominant maker of baby foods in America, will stop adding starch and sugar to most of its main products in an effort to grab a bigger chunk of the health-conscious-parents market. Gerber said the move, to be formally announced today, is unrelated to criticisms by a consumer advocacy group that the company diluted its baby foods with water, sugar and chemically modified starch and deceived the public about the foods' nutritional value.

The world's largest food and beverage company turned its attention to the younger set Thursday. Nestle agreed to pay $5.5 billion in cash for Gerber Products Co., which has 80% of the U.S. baby food market. Parsippany, N.J.-based Gerber, best known to parents for the charcoal drawing of a wide-eyed, chubby-cheeked infant on its products since 1931, is a unit of Novartis, another Swiss giant, which is focusing on healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

Gerber is changing the packaging of some of its baby food. Gone are the single-serving glass jars used since the 1940s to package applesauce, bananas and pears. Now those three products will come in cube-shaped plastic containers, Gerber Products Co. officials were to announce today. The new containers will come in four-packs and have plastic lids that snap on and off with a foil seal to prevent tampering.

Baby food giant Gerber Products Co., whose foods have been a staple in American parents' cupboards for nearly 70 years, agreed Monday to be acquired by Swiss pharmaceuticals conglomerate Sandoz Corp. for $3.7 billion in cash. The deal would allow Gerber, which claims more than 70% of the large but stagnant U.S. baby food market, to seek faster growth overseas through Sandoz's international network of subsidiaries and distributors. Sandoz, in turn, would acquire a well-known U.S.

The world's largest baby-food company, Gerber Products Co., says it's getting ready for when the baby boom goes bust. Gerber has new products and selling strategies aimed at expanding sales beyond the 1-year-old and younger babies who currently slurp, throw and spit most of its applesauce, strained carrots and other mushy meals. With such a specialized market, Gerber executives keep a close eye on demographic trends, snatching up indications of how many babies are born or will be born.

Usually we encounter Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, under the glare of TV camera lights, blasting yet another food that Americans have come to love--maybe movie house popcorn or deli sandwiches or Mexican food--for being too fatty. On this weekday, Jacobson is home, taking care of his 3-year-old daughter, Sonya, and talking to a reporter on the telephone. He is, as always, ready to voice a strong opinion and unafraid to name names.

Babies may be babies the world around, but in Japan, they eat "rice with young sardines." In the Philippines, they go for "strained mango." And in the pastoral farmlands Down Under, Aussie tots eat "lamb stock stew." Those culinary quirks are just a few of the cultural nuances Gerber Products Co. has had to master in launching an aggressive drive into the Pacific Rim. The Michigan-based firm, which dominates the U.S.

Irvine police waited 17 days before sending a tampered baby food jar to the Orange County Sheriff's Department crime lab for forensics testing, and the Food and Drug Administration did not receive it until about a month after its discovery -- and determined it had been contaminated, information supplied by the Sheriff's Department and the FDA shows.