The Founders of Bobbie Want to Take Better Care of Babies — And Their Parents 

Take a look at any new parent’s Instagram explore page and you’re bound to find dozens of videos explaining how to feed a baby — and just as many contradictory opinions. 

The founders of Bobbie, an organic infant formula brand, know what’s going on in social media algorithms (and, let’s face it, in new parents’ minds) when choosing between breastfeeding, formula feeding, or a combination of both.  

“There’s guilt and stigma in our society around how you feed your baby, and I think people from both sides feel it” says Sara Holman, Chief Commercial Officer at Bobbie. “You can tackle the conversations around feeding equity and feeding journeys, but at the end of the day, if you’re not proud of the product you’re feeding your kid, you can’t be proud of the decision you made.” 

By Parents, For Parents

Holman is proud of Bobbie. 

As a mother of two, she’s keenly aware of all the information thrown at parents, including the unique challenges that come along with choosing a formula brand. Parents wonder if a formula is nutritionally comparable to breast milk, if the formula contains potentially harmful ingredients, and — another popular idea that’s taken hold online in recent years — if they should be importing formula from Europe, where ingredient restrictions are often stricter. (Note: At Thrive Market, we restrict 1,000+ ingredients on all our products, including baby formulas. Read more about our quality standards here.) 

“At Bobbie, we’re so intentional,” she says. “It takes us years to develop our products, and a big part of that is because we designed the products to fit both the EU and the U.S. regulations. There’s the perception that European formulas are healthier, and we are really challenging that with the level of thoughtfulness in how we source every single ingredient: expeller pressed organic oils, dairy from family-run farms, thinking about where our DHA sources are for optimal brain development and growth. It’s been a labor of love for years.” 

Bobbie began in 2018, when co-founder and new mom Laura Modi experienced mastitis (an inflammation of breast tissue caused by breastfeeding) and decided to supplement with formula. She couldn’t find a formula without corn syrup, fillers, or palm oil, so by the time her second baby came around, she decided to make one herself. The formula contains a 60:40 whey/casein protein ratio, similar to mature breast milk, plus 100% organic lactose as the carb source.

Modi brought her close friend and fellow mom Sarah Hardy on board, along with a team of scientists and pediatric nutritionists, and by 2020, Bobbie received the go-ahead from the FDA to become the first infant formula to enter the U.S. market in six years. 

“When we launched, the only players were multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, and here we were, this mom-founded company,” Holman says.  

Sourcing Ingredients From Sustainable Supply Chains 

To the team at Bobbie, shipping European formula from overseas is unnecessary, unvetted, and unsustainable. 

“The more I’ve learned about this industry, domestic manufacturing has become critically important to me,” Holman says. “I used some of those European formulas with my oldest daughter, and now in hindsight I think, what was I doing? People were just importing that formula. It was sitting in someone’s garage or in a warehouse or on a cargo ship.” 

This emphasis on creating formulas using the highest quality domestic ingredients has also allowed Bobbie to create a much more sustainable, transparent supply chain. “One of the things I’m most proud of is how much we have invested in our American supply chain, starting with the farmers we work with,” she says. “When you’re shipping products in cargo ships across oceans, from factories with different standards, there’s a lot of impact on the environment.” 

She also acknowledges that with even the highest quality formulas, it’s difficult for parents to know where the ingredients come from — especially when they’re sourced from overseas. 

With Bobbie, the brand is open about sourcing: They get a lot of their dairy from farms across the U.S., their organic oil blend from a family-run supplier in California, and it’s all used to produce Bobbie formulas in-house at their manufacturing facility in Ohio. The brand then conducts more than 2,000 quality tests to make sure that things like heavy metals aren’t present in any of their formulas.

“It’s a different level of transparency that I feel a lot of American parents haven’t gotten out of this industry,” Holman says. “I really think Bobbie is paving the way on that front.”

Bobbie for Change: From Milk to Movement 

The founders of Bobbie quickly realized that once they started really paying attention to the issues their customers face, it was impossible to stop at just formula. “When you become a parent, you become an activist,” she says. “You start to experience the world in a different way.”

As a company, Bobbie advocates for better paid parental leave in the U.S. and raises awareness for the Black maternal mortality crisis, which refers to the significantly higher rates of death during or shortly after childbirth compared to other races. 

After learning that women with breast cancer who have undergone a mastectomy or lumpectomy can receive an insurance-covered breast pump through the Affordable Care Act, but are not supported when it comes to covering the cost of formula or donor milk, Bobbie created the Bobbie Breasties. The initiative has provided formula to nearly 300 families affected by breast cancer. 

To date, Bobbie has donated more than 100,000 cans of formula to breast cancer survivors, families who have experienced maternal loss, and families who have gone through natural disasters, such as the recent Los Angeles wildfires. 

“We take these things very personally because we’re moms and we have to look out for each other,” Holman says. “It feels like a lot of the time, American moms are left to look out for themselves.” 

Confident, Judgement-Free Parenting 

When making decisions as a company, the team at Bobbie always thinks of their own children. “The vast majority of the company are parents,” Holman says. “In our C-suite alone, we have 11 kids ranging from newborn to 10 years old, and our CEO is a mom of four. We’re putting it in our own baby’s mouths — that’s a different level of care and commitment when we’re making these products for our own children, too. 

The stakes are extremely high when creating a product as important as baby formula, but Holman says their dedication to sustainability, ingredient sourcing, manufacturing, and testing have led to a product that their community believes in and their children benefit from. 

“We’ve fed over 500,000 babies that are now walking, talking, reading, doing math, and walking into kindergarten,” Holman says. “They are smart kids, and they were nourished by Bobbie. A big part of that is because we worked very hard to look at what the best standards were globally, and then we designed our formulas based on what we wanted as moms.” 

Feeding a baby isn’t always linear, but Bobbie wants parents to feel supported throughout the newborn phase and beyond.

“We should allow everyone to have confidence in their own feeding journey,”  Holman says. “And you can’t be confident without a product you’re proud of.” At the end of the day, she says Bobbie’s mission is to empower parents and change parenting culture for the better. “When parents feel educated and equipped, they can really feel confidence in the decisions that they make. There is no wrong way to feed your baby, whether it’s formula, breastfeeding, combination feeding, or donor milk — whatever people want to do, that’s the right decision for their family.” 

Shop Bobbie at Thrive Market

Bobbie Grass-Fed Whole Milk Infant Formula Powder With Iron
An infant formula with a 60:40 whey/casein protein ratio, similar to mature breast milk, plus MFGM from creamy whole milk, DHA, ARA, and choline.

Bobbie Organic Infant Formula Milk-Based Powder With Iron
An infant formula with a 60:40 whey/casein protein ratio and expert recommended levels of DHA, iron, choline, and vitamin D.

Bobbie Organic Gentle® Infant Formula Milk-Based Powder With Iron
A gentler formula formulated with partially hydrolyzed whey protein for easier digestion.

Bobbie Organic Vitamin D Drops
A supplement for combination-fed and breastfed babies who may not be getting adequate amounts of vitamin D.

Bobbie Organic Probiotic Drops
An organic supplement to help soothe colicky babies.