Happy Family (food company)

Happy Family is an organic and baby food company in the US. It was ranked No. 2 in Inc. Magazine's 2011 list of the 500 Fastest-Growing Companies, in the food industry category.

History
Happy Family was founded in 2003 by Shazi Visram. Visram developed the idea as a graduate student at Columbia Business School, where she studied the baby-food market and child nutrition, and began building the company while in business school. In 2005, Jessica Rolph joined as COO and founding partner. Rolph, a Cornell Business School graduate, had a prior career at Whole Foods in research.

The company launched its first products on Mother's Day in 2006 – a line of organic, fresh-frozen baby meals sold through a New York grocery store chain.

By 2010, Happy Family grew to more than $13 million in sales and was ranked 68th in Inc. Magazine's list of fastest-growing companies, with three-year growth of over 3,000%. By the end of 2012, the company employed more than 70 people, and its products were available in over 14,000 stores and 30 countries.

The company secured $30 million in debt and equity financing from individual private investors through a number of financing rounds rather than selling equity to private equity or venture capital groups. In May 2013, Groupe Danone acquired a 92% stake in the company with both Visram and Rolph as current owner partners.