Laura Modi, CEO and mother, breaks one of the largest duopoles in the market

Laura Modi, co-founder and CEO of the infant food startup Bobbie, has set itself the task of transforming an industry that, in her opinion, has been stagnating for decades, and to change the culture of how parents feed their babies.

Modi, a former Airbnb manager, had the idea for Bobbie after the birth of her first child.

“I remember how I went to a pharmacy to buy infant food and hoped that they would give me a bag through which you could not look through because the product I bought was so embarrassing,” Modi recalls in a new episode of the Podcast “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” with Julia Boorstin from CNBC.

In 2024, Modi was included in the first CNBC Changemaker list.

It was not only the emotional aspects of consumer transaction that motivated Modi, but also the fact that the product itself was an indication of a market that was against changes.

“Muesli bars have changed, bags chips, lemonades, but still such an important product as infant food was still the same as what I had 40 years earlier,” says Modi.

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According to modes, infant food is a large market and a classic example of a market in which established companies were not stimulated by the competition.

A report by the Federal Trade Commission from 2022, when there was a nationwide lack of milk food, illustrated the risks of what was considered a duopoly market for a long time. The two companies that dominate the production of infant food in the United States are stretching and Abbott, whose common market share is estimated to be almost 70 % based on government contracts in 2022 (this is a decline compared to over 80 % in 2008). Taking into account non -governmental sales, the market share is even higher. Nestle and Perrigo were also important providers of infant food – Perrigo bought Nestle’s nesting shop based in the USA and Canada in 2022 and maintains a common production relationship with Bobbie.

It was the closure of Abbott’s formula production in 2022 after a recall that led to a renewed focus on the risk of market concentration.

“I think we all assumed that it is a goods. It is infant food. It should simply be available,” says Modi. “When the president said: ‘America cannot feed babies’, you start to unpack it.”

Bobbie, which Modi co-founded in 2018, quickly gained importance by concentrating on product quality-in April Bobbie introduced the first and only USDA-organic milk-sailing food in the USA-and a business philosophy geared towards the mission, including a campaign with celebrities that are committed to paid family vacation.

“Don’t sell the product,” says Modi about the marketing message. “Fight for paid vacation and enter a telephone number at the end of the segment or at the end of the ad so that people can call their representative so that they can explain why we need paid vacation, why we have to fight for the crisis of black mother mortality, why childcare costs skyrocket.

Bobbie’s first products were the first subscription-based direct sales sequence food in the USA in 2021 and are now available from Target to Costco to Whole Foods.

It is not possible to fulfill a social mission without being involved in politics. Modi was recently confronted with counter -reactions of some customers after taking part in a federal round table organized by the government with some of the largest manufacturers of baby food and could be photographed with the controversial Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“Yes, it happens that the current government represents some polarizing perspectives, and when I received the call in which I was informed that they are invited to a round table talk about the future of their industry and the other CEOs of the baby food, which happen to be all men, they can also be in this room that I can believe this invitation, and I have accepted this invitation, because I have accepted this, and I would not do that, my voice and the voice of the mothers and the voice of our community or the next generation would do it. ” In this table, “Modi told CNBC.” The general intention is to improve the industry, regardless of who is in office. “

Discipline requires discipline to reconcile the advocacy with the reality of leading a startup and the upbringing of four children. Modi says she ranks on an evening “personal and professional check-in”, which consists of evaluating her day on a scale from one to five. She also tells CNBC of the rather “strict” common calendar that the family leads to each member.

In an industry in which the failure safety of the supply chain has become an important national message issue, Modi says that it is still closely associated with its greatest challenge. Bobbie started producing formulas in a large production facility in Ohio last year, which it had built from scratch, a step that, according to modes, is of crucial importance for security and stability.

“The biggest challenge is that this is a strongly regulated, really pharmaceutical product. And while in many ways it is a packaged consumer goods product on the shelf, you will not be able to find any other product in a business that essentially represents an alternative to something that creates human body as the only food for the latest audience,” she says. “We have developed very quickly and have become the fastest growing company for infant food. This is a decade of care, promoting security and quality and continuous investments.”

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