Founders of Loveggie

Hello, I'm Anastasia, the founder of the Loveggie (i.e. Love Veggie) brand and the Loveggie Inc. company registered in the U.S.

How can I get my children to eat more fruit and vegetables? That is the question that inspired Loveggie and our mission is to help parents install good eating habits from an early age.

Loveggie products are made with love towards veggies and fruit with the aim to make children healthier and parents happier.

"Heathy kids = happy parents!"

Anastasia

Founder of Loveggie

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Here is my story of how the Loveggie idea was born ……

Personally, I always loved fruit and vegetables. I grew up having a small variety of fresh produce from our small garden for 2–3 months in summer, much of which was pickled to last through the winter. When I was a high school exchange student in North Carolina, I met the joys of unlimited buffets and would help myself to as many fruit & vegetables as I could, trying everything new.

However, it was just a few years ago that I learned about the actual benefits of fruit and vegetables and other natural foods like spices, nuts, mushrooms, beans. I was thrilled to discover that with their wide variety of vitamins, minerals, and other health-building substances they are able to prevent, slow the progression/treat, and sometimes even reverse serious illnesses. I was like... WHAT? I didn't know this, I want to learn more! And I am still learning and learning and the journey has just begun... learning just how much eating fruit & vegetables leads to a healthier and happier life.

And that also was the time when I – very enthusiastically – started introducing vast quantities of fruit and veggies into our family meals ... BUT... “Wait!”, said my children, Maria (then 6 y.o.) and Emma (then 2 y.o.), “Not that fast, Mummy! What are you thinking?”

For the children, it was not so easy to start eating much more fruit & veggies,and introducing new types of them proved to be even more of a challenge. Did this happen to anyone else, or is it just my children who are difficult? How could I make eating fruit & vegetables fun for my children?

From this the idea of Loveggie was born. How to make eating fruit & veggies fun! The adventure continues for us and I wanted to help others with the ideas that have worked for me and add some products to help even more.

Some basic learnings along the way leading to my daughters being far more enthusiastic about trying and eating fruit & vegetables:

Fun food arrangements.Whenever a little man in a hat made up of corn and cucumber and spinach leaves and avocado ends up on the plate, it gets eaten with a greater pleasure (and speed) than servings of corn, cucumber, spinach and avocado laying idle. (This experience contributed to my first product that I am designing now, more about it below).
Social "food" interaction with other kids, i.e. having meals together.Oh yeh! I still remember whom we “owe” different vegetables!
Food preparation together.Having spent over an hour chopping veggies for a salad for the whole family, Maria made sure that she ate a huge plate herself and was encouraging her younger sister to do the same, using as the main argument the fact that she had worked so hard on it!
Growing herbs on the balcony. My children like to water them and see them grow and add to the salad, even that dill (!!) which is still not their favourite (Do you know why??)

Cutting everything into small pieces. This is why the preparation of a salad takes so long!! But it's worth it, if the children can accept and eat different kinds of vegetables. All of a sudden they realize that "Oh my gosh, I just ate a piece of kale and it was great!"

Talking to other Mummies (and sometimes Daddies too), I realized that eating healthier is important to many. And although we all eat different kinds of food and may disagree as to what is considered healthy, no one tends to dispute that vegetables and fruit are a good choice – and the more of them the better! Snacks made of fruits and nuts/seeds? Yeh! Better than sweets and lollipops. A big salad with lunch or dinner? Perfect addition to whatever else is on the plate!

My brand Loveggie was born through thoughts on how to make the above described process of falling in love with vegetables easier by creating appealing, useful, fun, educational products that would help the little brains understand that vegetables are tasty, important for health and fun to try. I am excited to be on the path of creating something valuable for many children and their parents around the world.

Loveggie reflects my love of vegetables and fruit.

Its aim is not to advocate any particular diet or style of living.

Rather, its aim is to encourage the consumption of vegetables and fruits by children and grown-up children (i.e. adults :), to share knowledge about them, or to simply cheer for their existence.

I've created my first product, the Loveggie Tray, for smaller children, for 2-5 year olds, I would say. It is a food tray made of bio-degradable bamboo on which the children or their parents can arrange various vegetables according to the provided design.

There will be more products based on this idea, and many others built with love towards veggies (I am planning to consult with you about these products before I make them, and would love to get your feedback and ideas for future products).

There are songs created for the Loveggie trays and stories featuring the characters from the trays. They aim at telling kids about healthy attributes of fruit and veggies, mentioning good habits that people can have, as well as good deeds that they can do. The stories will keep a child's interest in using their tray longer...and thus... will contribute to him/her eating more veggies ;)

If you read till the end, I am sincerely thankful and look forward to exchanging more thoughts and ideas with you as I develop my brand. I am thrilled to share my journey with you!

With love,

Anastasia, Founder of Loveggie

Daughters Maria + Emma = dedicated assistants

Feel free to send us an email at: loveggie@loveggie.co