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Home › Annabel Karmel Baby Equipment › Under £5

Annabel Karmel is one of Britain's most successful female cookery writers. Her 14 books - advising mothers around the world on how to feed their offspring healthy meals - have been translated into 20 different languages.

Her feeding products are synonomous with no-fuss feeding and weaning.

Annabel Karmel wants to be the Martha Stewart for children, but her approach to building her brand has never been pushy. For 20 years, she has been raising it, gradually and painstakingly, like a parent bringing up a treasured child.

When she discovered her son was a bad eater, she realized that "the one thing you can do to control a child's health was to control what they eat."

Always passionate about cooking, she began to research infant nutrition at the Institute of Child Health, attached to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, instead of relying on "old wives' tales," she says. In a playgroup she ran, she tested some recipes on children.

In 1991, she wrote The Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner, which has since been published around the world, selling more than three million copies.

"It blew away all the misconceptions. I found a lot of moms were giving restricted diets to babies, just fruit and vegetable purées. But you can give meat at seven months. You can give fish, chicken and eggs. The children's [food] market was very neglected. The great chefs didn't want to make children's food. But for me, it was what I wanted to do. No one seemed to care about tasty, healthy food for children. Until recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics has not agreed with what I said, and now they agree with me on everything in that book," she says.

Her career toddled along, "steady but very slow," she says. In 16 years she wrote 13 books on everything from family meals to cooking with children.

Then, in 2006, the year she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen for her contribution to child nutrition, a growth spurt happened. Companies approached her with brand extension ideas. She worked with retailer Marks & Spencer as a consultant on a line of children's food. Popular drug store chain Boots invited her to create equipment for making baby food.

Now, she is managing a full-grown giant of potential, which has prompted her to take control of her brand. "I think I have learned that you can do things without a big company behind you, but I didn't believe that at the time. You doubt yourself. But these big companies that make food don't love food the way I do."

She developed her own brand of ready-made children's foods, which are sold in a variety of supermarkets.

She provides the children's food for popular theme parks in Britain, such as Legoland and Thorpe Park. A line of items including bibs, bowls, spoons and cooking kits, including rolling pins and whisks for young chefs, has been launched.

The first edition of the Annabel Karmel Family Cookbook, a glossy magazine full of recipes and food-related ideas, hit shelves in Britain in time for Christmas. Spring and summer editions are planned for this year.

A television series on cooking with children is in development. Next up: nurturing the market in North America, where her books already sell well and where she is a frequent guest on the Today show.