The Bombacino's
Julie and Tony Bombacino have two children. Their youngest, A.J., is four years old. He's been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, global developmental delays, autism and epilepsy. Due to his condition, he is still unable to walk or communicate. He also eats through a feeding tube. When Julie first started feeding him at home, he couldn't tolerate any of the formulas his doctor prescribed. So, she started blending all his meals up in a Vitamix. This proved to be time consuming, but it worked, so the family endured.
Then, on a family trip to Disney World, while spending most of her time blending food for her son, Julie had an idea. What if there were commercial, shelf-stable blended meals for tube feeders? Not formula; REAL food, with REAL ingredients like she blended at home! Julie went through all the steps of starting a business: work with nutritionists and food scientists to develop meals and get them approved by the USDA, get investors and launch a crowdfunding (Indiegogo) campaign to raise money and awareness, find a factory in the U.S. that could mass produce each meal, develop a website and marketing campaign, and I've probably missed a few dozen more steps she went through. Around January, 2014, the Bombacino's dream became reality and the first Real Food Blends started shipping out to eager customers.
Fast forward to today. Real Food Blends has grown dramatically. The meals are approved by most insurance and starting to be accepted in hospitals. A new meal is coming out next month (Turkey!). Julie and Tony are incredibly busy. Meetings with insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, and individual customers have them criss-crossing the country with little time for themselves. On top of this, they still have to focus on A.J. He still has seizures, still can't talk or walk. They still need to bring him to see various specialists both near and far from their home in Indiana. A.J. is the C.I.O. (Chief Inspiration Officer); they started this whole thing because of him. They pour so much love and support into their tube-fed son, and now they've taken on countless other tubie children and adults who rely on Real Food Blends for their nutrition.
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| Julie and A.J., who is also Superman |
Then, on a family trip to Disney World, while spending most of her time blending food for her son, Julie had an idea. What if there were commercial, shelf-stable blended meals for tube feeders? Not formula; REAL food, with REAL ingredients like she blended at home! Julie went through all the steps of starting a business: work with nutritionists and food scientists to develop meals and get them approved by the USDA, get investors and launch a crowdfunding (Indiegogo) campaign to raise money and awareness, find a factory in the U.S. that could mass produce each meal, develop a website and marketing campaign, and I've probably missed a few dozen more steps she went through. Around January, 2014, the Bombacino's dream became reality and the first Real Food Blends started shipping out to eager customers.
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| Coming next month in powdered form! |
Fast forward to today. Real Food Blends has grown dramatically. The meals are approved by most insurance and starting to be accepted in hospitals. A new meal is coming out next month (Turkey!). Julie and Tony are incredibly busy. Meetings with insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, and individual customers have them criss-crossing the country with little time for themselves. On top of this, they still have to focus on A.J. He still has seizures, still can't talk or walk. They still need to bring him to see various specialists both near and far from their home in Indiana. A.J. is the C.I.O. (Chief Inspiration Officer); they started this whole thing because of him. They pour so much love and support into their tube-fed son, and now they've taken on countless other tubie children and adults who rely on Real Food Blends for their nutrition.
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| Forget the meals; how do I get a Real Food Blends chef's coat?? |
The Liebenow's
Brian and Betsy Liebenow have one kid, Grace. She's eight. The other day, the couple were sitting on the couch watching T.V. when Grace called down from the kitchen:
"Mommy!" ...no response... "MMMOOOMMMMEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"
"Yeah?!?"
"I'M HUNGRY!!!"
"Well, find something to eat!"
"WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING!!!"
"We've got lots of stuff. Have a granola bar!"
"I DON'T WANT A GRANOLA BAR."
"Keep looking!"
"MOMMY, MY TUMMY HURTS BECAUSE I'M SO HUNGRY!"
"Fine. I'll make you some ravioli. JUST LET US WATCH THIS SHOW!!"
I'd say one of these couples isn't putting the proper amount of effort into parenting.
Early this month, Julie and Tony were in Nashville for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' annual Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE). Nashville isn't too long of a drive from where we live, so Julie asked if they could take Betsy and I out to dinner one night. We were thinking, YEAH, sounds great! Free dinner and we can spend a Saturday night in the 'big city' away from the in-laws! Ok, maybe it was just me thinking that last part, but I told Julie that it would be awesome to meet them and learn a little more about the company.
Then Julie said that since we were in town, maybe we'd like to stop by the Expo for the day on Sunday and spend some time at the Real Food Blends booth. She also said Real Food Blends was willing to pay for our hotel room for the night. This overnight stay is sounding better and better! The FNCE is where registered dietitian nutritionists, dietetic technicians as well as many researchers, educators, students, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, clinical and community dietetics professionals, consultants and food service managers from all over the country gather to learn about the latest trends in nutrition. The Expo happens in a different city every year, and this year it was in a huge room at the Music City Center in Nashville. The day we were there, over 11,000 people were in attendance. It's kind of a big deal.
Saturday afternoon, Betsy and I left Grace on a street corner to fend for herself and drove over to Nashville. We checked into our hotel room, then met Julie and Tony for dinner at Puckett's, a really popular barbecue restaurant a couple blocks from where we were staying. Thankfully, Julie had reservations because this is one of those places where it is impossible to get a table on a Saturday night without reservations. Like pretty much every other restaurant we've been to, the wait staff at Puckett's were very accommodating. When the first table they showed us didn't fit my syringe holder, they let us take another one that was thin enough for me. I ended up getting the BBQ patter with a mix of pork, chicken and brisket. The meal included sweet potato fries, baked beans, and coleslaw, but I left off the fries so my blend wouldn't get too thick. I also got a Peach Ice Tea (like a Long Island Ice Tea, but peachy) because Real Food Blends paid for my meal and if there's one thing I'm good at, it's being a freeloader.
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| Would've been a good pic, but a weird couple photobombed me |
The next morning, Betsy and I walked to Music City Center to check out the Expo. It was so fascinating to see!! It's like going grocery shopping, if there were two people standing behind each item in the store explaining why it's such a healthy product. All the big food companies were there. Betsy and I only walked around a little bit, but some of the booths I saw in no particular order: Kellogg's, Monsanto, Abbott Nutrition (makers of Ensure), the Sugar Association (ironically, this was at the booth next to Real Food Blends), Dole Fruits, Blendtec (didn't see the Vitamix booth but they were there), Campbell Soup Company, Organic Valley, Chick-fil-A (one of the more popular booths), Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Gluten Intolerance Group of North America, Kikkoman Foods, Nestle, NutriBullet, PepsiCo, StarKist, the Wild Blueberry Association, the Cranberry Marketing Committee, Pfizer, and Sun-Maid. This is just a fraction of the 380 exhibitors at the Expo and most of them were giving out free samples, so you could graze your way through the conference if you were so inclined.
The best part of the day, by far, was sitting in the Real Foods Blend booth and watching Julie and Tony changing hearts and minds about eating blended food through feeding tubes. Like I said, there were thousands of health professionals in attendence and many of them (most?) had patients with feeding tubes or they were students preparing themselves to work with tubies. This was the third year that Real Food Blends had a booth at FNCE, so there wasn't quite as much disbelief from attendents on feeding tubies real food, but there were still those who insisted that blended meals were "too unsanitary" to use in a hospital setting or didn't offer the "total nutrition" that Abbott Nutrition touts with their formula products.
I especially enjoyed sitting in the booth while Betsy pushed a coffee and Salmon, Oats & Squash meal through my tube.
I liked being able to tell people that I've been eating Real Food Blends since they started and the meals ABSOLUTELY sit better in my stomach than Ensure ever did. I think bit by bit, the health community is becoming aware of the benefits of eating real food, rather than corn syrupy formulas. Hopefully Betsy and I helped Julie and Tony on Sunday, but then we had to get back to our couch and starving child, while the Bombacino's continued making the world a better place.
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| Julie and Tony spreading the gospel of real food |
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| "Who's that hot tubie model at the RFB booth??" -overheard at FNCE 2015 |
I especially enjoyed sitting in the booth while Betsy pushed a coffee and Salmon, Oats & Squash meal through my tube.
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| Oh, Betsy is the hot model |
I liked being able to tell people that I've been eating Real Food Blends since they started and the meals ABSOLUTELY sit better in my stomach than Ensure ever did. I think bit by bit, the health community is becoming aware of the benefits of eating real food, rather than corn syrupy formulas. Hopefully Betsy and I helped Julie and Tony on Sunday, but then we had to get back to our couch and starving child, while the Bombacino's continued making the world a better place.
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