Created by a clinical nutritionist, nurse and mum of four, New Zealand-born Odi has arrived in Australia with nutrient-dense food designed for busy families.
Feeding children can feel like a full-time job — except the boss changes their mind every six minutes and sometimes throws lunch on the floor.
Between daycare drop-offs, school lunches, after-school activities and the nightly question of “What will they actually eat?”, convenient options are often essential, not optional.
Because while we would all love to prepare every meal and snack from scratch, real family life has other plans. There are school bags to find, shoes to put on and at least one child announcing they no longer like the food they happily ate yesterday.
One new arrival to Australia believes convenience shouldn’t have to come at the expense of nutrition.
New Zealand-born children’s nutrition brand Odi has officially launched in Australia, bringing with it a range of baby pouches, powders, bars, bites and family nutrition products created for children from six months through to 14 years.
Its message to the baby-food industry is refreshingly simple: we can do better.
Looking Beyond the “Healthy” Label
Parents are used to seeing words such as “healthy”, “natural” and “organic” splashed across baby and children’s food packaging.
They’re reassuring words, particularly when you’re standing in the supermarket with a tired toddler, a half-finished shopping list and approximately three minutes before somebody has a meltdown.
But those words don’t always tell the complete nutritional story.
Many convenient foods for babies and children rely heavily on fruit. Fruit absolutely has a place in a balanced diet, but heavily fruit-based products can also be naturally high in sugar while providing limited nutritional variety.
According to Odi, some children’s pouch products contain the equivalent of five teaspoons, or approximately 20 grams, of sugar in a single serve.
This becomes particularly relevant during early childhood, when babies and young children have significant nutritional needs but can only eat relatively small amounts at a time. Australian infant-feeding guidance also recommends introducing iron-rich foods at around six months of age.
It doesn’t mean parents need to panic about every pouch or packaged snack. It simply means it is worth looking beyond the front of the packet and checking what a product actually contains.
Odi founder Gina Urlich believes parents should be able to expect more from food created specifically for growing children.
“A product can be organic, natural or made predominantly from fruit and still not provide meaningful amounts of nutrients such as iron, protein, iodine or omega-3,” Gina says.
Created by a Mum Who Understands the Struggle
Gina is a clinical nutritionist, nurse and mother of four, so she understands that feeding children is rarely as simple as preparing a perfectly balanced meal and watching them eat every bite.
Sometimes dinner is lovingly homemade.
Sometimes it is assembled in eight minutes while answering a work email, helping with homework and wondering why every clean spoon has mysteriously disappeared.
Gina founded Odi after becoming frustrated by the gap between what parents might reasonably assume children’s food provides and what some products actually contain.
“When I started looking closely at the category, I kept coming back to the same question: where are the nutrients?” she says.
“Babies and children have enormous nutritional needs relative to the amount of food they can physically eat, so every mouthful is an opportunity. We wanted to create food that makes those mouthfuls count.”
Rather than expecting parents to prepare every snack and meal from scratch, Odi is focused on making convenient choices more nutritionally meaningful.
“Parents don’t need another person telling them they should be cooking everything from scratch,” Gina says.
“I’m a mother of four. I understand the reality of feeding children when you’re busy, tired and trying to get everyone out the door.”
Honestly, that may be the most realistic thing anyone has ever said about feeding children.
So, What Makes Odi Different?
Formerly known as Norish, Odi says its products are developed by starting with nutrient density rather than sweetness, shelf life or the least expensive ingredients to manufacture.
The range uses wholefood ingredients including organic vegetables, organ blends, bone broth and algal DHA omega-3. Depending on the product, nutrients such as iron, protein, iodine and omega-3 are derived from food ingredients rather than relying entirely on synthetic fortification.
Odi says several products provide approximately 30 to 50 per cent of a child’s recommended daily iron intake, depending on the product and the child’s age.
As with any packaged food for babies or children, parents should check the ingredients, nutritional panel, serving recommendations and age guidance to determine whether a particular product is suitable for their child. Families managing allergies, medical conditions or specific nutritional concerns should also seek advice from an appropriate healthcare professional.
The aim is not to make family food more complicated. It is to give parents practical options that can fit into everyday routines while providing nutrients that support growing bodies.
What Is Available in the Odi Range?
Odi was originally created for babies beginning solids but has since expanded into a broader children’s nutrition range for families with children aged from six months to 14 years.
Its baby pouch range includes:
- Organic Chicken & Vegetable
- Organic Berry & Coconut
- Organic Chickpea & Vegetable
- Organic Vanilla & Coconut
The pouches are formulated for babies from six months, with parents encouraged to follow the age and serving guidance supplied on each product.
The wider Odi range includes powders, bars, bites and other snacks designed to feel familiar to children while placing greater emphasis on wholefood ingredients, fibre, protein and nutrient density.
In other words, the goal is food that children may actually agree to eat, with a little more thought put into what goes inside it.
Because a snack can have an impressive nutritional profile, but if your child treats it like a personal betrayal and refuses to let it near their mouth, you are back to square one.
Convenience Without the Parent Guilt
Perhaps the most relatable part of Odi’s approach is its acknowledgement that convenience is a normal and often necessary part of family life.
The brand isn’t asking parents to abandon pouches, packaged snacks or quick options. It wants to raise the standard of what those convenient products can offer.
There is already more than enough pressure surrounding what parents “should” feed their children. Most families don’t need another lecture or an unrealistic meal plan that assumes everybody has unlimited time, money and enthusiasm.
They need practical options for the mornings when someone has lost their hat, the afternoons spent driving between activities and the evenings when cooking an elaborate dinner simply isn’t happening.
Convenient food isn’t a parenting failure. It is often one of the things helping families get through a very busy day.
Odi Has Officially Arrived in Australia
After building its range in New Zealand, Odi is now bringing its baby and children’s nutrition products across the Tasman.
The company’s long-term ambition is to help improve the nutritional quality of food created for babies and children while giving parents more confidence in the convenient options available to them.
That is an ambitious goal, but it begins somewhere surprisingly ordinary: with the next pouch, snack or hurried mouthful offered on a busy family day.
The Odi range is available online in Australia, with products expected to arrive at a wider selection of Australian retailers soon.
And if a convenient snack can make the school-run scramble slightly easier while giving parents a little more confidence about what their children are eating, we suspect plenty of Australian families will be interested.
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