Product Review: Little Bellies Organic Berry & Apple Softcorn

Little Bellies Organic Berry & Apple Softcorn is a puffed corn snack aimed at babies and toddlers from around 7 months. As far as packaged snacks go, it's a reasonable choice — the ingredient list is short and mostly organic, there's no added sugar or salt, sodium is very low and iron has been added. It won't replace real food and it's light on protein and fibre, but for an occasional snack or for practising self-feeding it stacks up well against a lot of what's on the shelf.

What's In It?

Organic corn flour (74%), organic sunflower oil, fruit and berry powders — apple (4%), strawberry (2%), raspberry (2%) and banana — organic rice flour, iron, and organic rosemary extract as an antioxidant. There's no added sugar, and no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. The fruit and berry powders give it a light natural sweetness without anything extra added. It's made in the Netherlands.

Cost

$2.15 for an 8g pack, which works out to $26.88 per 100g. The per-100g figure looks high, but that's the nature of a single small puffed snack — the pack itself is an affordable grab.

Allergens

May contain milk, gluten and soy. Worth keeping in mind if your child has a known allergy or intolerance.

Nutrition Info

Sodium is very low at just 3mg per 8g serve (32mg per 100g), which is exactly what we like to see in a baby and toddler snack.

Sugar is minimal at 0.6g per serve (8.1g per 100g) with no added sugar — the small amount that's there comes from the fruit and berry powders.

Fat sits at 1.3g per serve (16g per 100g), mostly from the sunflower oil, with saturated fat very low at 0.1g per serve.

Protein is low at 0.4g per serve (5.6g per 100g) and fibre is also low at 0.4g per serve (4.4g per 100g), so this isn't adding much nutritionally beyond being a snack. That's expected for a puffed corn product and not a mark against it, as long as it's treated as a snack rather than a meal.

Iron has been added, which is a real positive — iron is a key nutrient for babies and one many miss out on.

The light, dissolvable texture also makes it lower risk for younger babies learning to self-feed, and the small 8g serve size suits little appetites.

Always supervise children and have them seated upright when eating to reduce the risk of choking.