I recently sat down with Martin De Ruyter from The Press to chat a bit about my “why” behind NaturKidz.
We talked about how ridiculously hard it can be to find genuinely good snacks at the supermarket that kids will actually eat - without all the weird stuff added in (looking at you sneaky added sugars, seed oils, numbers and preservatives).
VIDEO & ARTICLE CREDIT: MARTIN DE RUYTER
Originally printed in The Nelson Mail | The Press
Nelson woman Bonnie Slade points to a lack of healthy snacks that parents could grab off the shelves - that children would readily eat - as a prime motivator for her fast-growing brand.
Slade launched NaturKidz in 2023 and its products, including freeze-dried fruit, are now sold in Woolworths stores across New Zealand, as well as in Asia.
Recently chosen by Cuisine magazine as one of the country’s top 50 most influential and inspiring women in food and drink for 2025, Slade has spent over 17 years in the sector.
That includes time as the chief executive of Nelson-based company Chia Sisters.
She set up her own business, UBD Food Co, based on her experience as a busy mum.
“[I] pretty quickly discovered that it’s really difficult to find ... genuinely good quality food that actually tastes good, that kids will actually eat, on the shelf.”
The company's products had to "be genuinely healthy" and taste good, Slade said.
Coming up with them was a long process of trial and error with her own children.
“I honestly have gone through so many products ... thinking: this is awesome, it’s a great ingredients list, it looks really good, it’s not overly processed.
“And they’ve just gone, ‘Mum, it tastes like cardboard.’”
NaturKidz now has 10 products that have passed the test, including freeze-dried fruit sticks called Fruit Crispz, “which literally have one ingredient in most of them, and it’s fruit”.
Newcomers to the brand are Yoghurt Meltz (yoghurt and fruit) and Vegetable Meltz (100% vegetables).
The fruit sticks came in “fun packaging” that appealed to children but were not overloaded with colours, preservatives, flavours or additives, Slade said.
Parents were busy and needed healthy snacks they could “just grab and go with”.
But they were busy and often didn’t have the time to make the snacks from scratch, she said.
“I think there’s a real need for people to understand what they’re putting into their bodies.”
That was especially the case during “that toddler and childhood time, where what we feed our kids is so important to their ongoing development and ongoing ability to try new foods later on”, she said.
Want to try them?
Just fruit, veggies & yoghurt. That’s it.
