Our Story

Our journey so far

• 

  Baby Iris was born to our founder Amy. A breast fed baby she suffered with red raw atopic eczema. Following a reaction to a sip of goat milk based formula, Iris was diagnosed with allergies to dairy, soya, egg, oat, wheat, banana, kiwi, shellfish, stoned fruits, all tree nuts, peanuts and sesame . When Amy returned to teaching she struggled to find a milk/ formula alternative that was safe, natural, nutritious and delicious. This was her lightbulb moment! Grow with Iris was born!

• 

  Amy invests her own savings to work with Mel at 'Froghop' product developers. Mel, a food scientist, was passionate about innovation and supported Amy to create a paper based formulation and warned Amy as to how long and hard it would be to create a formula. Naively Amy continued. The business was registered at Companies House 17th August 2018

• 

  Initial concept pitched to local Mums and friends under our former name 'Little Iris'. Sophie, a creative director and designer (Amy’s school friend since the early 90s) helped with initial branding mock ups. Sharing the same goal to make a difference and the same vision, values and passion they became Co-Founders and the rest is history!

• 

  We won the Innovate UK ‘Sustainability in Innovation’ award. This year-long project enabled us to do in depth early research and development.

• 

  We continued our research and development and produced our first ever pilot batch, conducted rigorous focus groups and testing, explored biodegradable scoops and planet friendly packaging. We worked with medical professionals such as Dr Haddad, dietitians and paediatricians to further develop our formulation. We created a life cycle report, started work on our regulatory dossier and product blueprint to set the foundations for our future.

• 

  We continued to build upon our foundations including background legal and IP work. We were thrilled to be part of the Innovate UK ‘Women in Innovation award’ cohort, alongside incredible female entrepreneurs and innovators. Our first website went live!

• 

  As part of the Innovate UK project we produced our second pilot batch. Over 4000 pea-ple signing up for samples meaning we started to grow our wonderful community. We were accepted onto the Founder's Factory 'Biomedical Catalyst' accelerator programme. This connected us to the medical world and enabled us to elevate our knowledge and skills. We also joined the Female Founders Rise community. Amy finally leaves her job as an Art teacher to work full time on Grow with Iris!

• 

  We finally LAUNCHED on 30th August! Not even raw ingredients getting seized by pirates or Sophie having a baby could stop us from bringing our growing up drink (like formula) to the people who need it the most! We won 2x gold and x2 silver Free From Food awards, and have nominated for Start-up of the Year and three Nourish Food awards. We joined the Buy Women Built community which means we can proudly wear the kitemark and fly the flag for women built businesses!