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Superhero Strawberry Natural Yoghurt | Chewsday Review

There must be serious money to be made from squeezie pouch yoghurts, because it seems that every single brand of yoghurt has their own pouch. Let’s see if Brownes, the born and bred WA dairy company, has squeezed all of the good stuff into their recently rebranded, Superhero Strawberry Natural Yoghurt pouch.

Ingredients

Yoghurt [Milk, Milk Solids, Cream, Live Cultures (L. acidophilus, Bifidobacteria, L. casei)], Strawberry Sauce (8%) [Strawberries (42%), Sugar, Water, Rice Starch, Black Carrot and Blackcurrant Concentrate, Natural Flavour, Milk Minerals, Lemon Juice Concentrate].
Less than half of the strawberry sauce is made of strawberries, so overall there is only a teeny amount (about 4g) of strawberry in this.
Allergens: milk.

Positives

Calcium content is on the higher end for the kids section, at 192mg per 100g. This is more than the beloved Tamar Valley Kids Strawberry yoghurt pouch which has 143mg of calcium per 100g.
Total fat and saturated fat is well within recommendations, along with most other dairy yoghurts.
Sugar is within recommendations at 9.8g per 100g, but about double the amount of sugar in Tamar Valley and Rafferty’s pouches which have no added sugar. Most plain yoghurts have about 5g of naturally occuring sugar (lactose), so this pouch has about an extra teaspoon of sugar per 100g, coming from the strawberry sauce. About half of this teaspoon is from the strawberries.
This yoghurt contains live cultures. Yoghurt is made by fermenting milk with bacteria (aka a starter culture), but not all yoghurts have extra good bacteria (aka live cultures) added after this fermentation process. This yoghurt contains L. acidophilus, Bifidobacteria, L. casei and while Brownes haven’t given us the specific strain details, these bacteria are all considered to be health promoting.

Negatives

Squeezie pouches are very popular for their convenience, but regularly sucking from a pouch doesn’t help young kids to develop their biting and chewing skills. Single-use plastic pouches aren’t great news for the environment either.
There’s hardly any strawberry in the yoghurt. Having said that, I’m not buying the pouch for the fruit content, so having it as half the sweetener isn’t really a negative.
At $1.50 they’re not the cheapest per pouch, but somewhere in the middle of the range. Keep in mind that these pouches are 120g, so are better value than smaller pouches like Petit Miam’s kids yoghurt pouches which are $1 for only 70g.

Marketing

“Made with the purest, 100% locally sourced milk from WA’s South West region.” This is great to see (as someone who lives in and loves WA).
“Made from at least 96% Australian ingredients.” This is pretty similar to other pouches.
“Live probiotics.” True. Ideally we want the ingredients list to tell us what type of bacteria has been added, and for the nutrition information panel to show how much is added (aiming for at least 1 billion or 1.0×108 CFU).
“Gluten and gelatine free.” True, but so are most yoghurts. Most brands use rice starch or cornstarch instead of gelatine to thicken and improve texture nowadays.

Alternatives

This is a decent yoghurt pouch option, with a good amount of calcium and only a small amount of added sugar. We buy them reasonably regularly. The tub version of this has more strawberry sauce but slightly less sugar, which I don’t quite understand. But that’s a review for another day!
Tamar Valley Kids are slightly more expensive and lower in calcium, but have no added sugar and are a similar sized pouch at 110g.
If you’re offering pouches regularly, consider using a bowl and spoon when possible, to support the development of your child’s biting and chewing skills.
If you’re aiming to reduce your single-use plastic, buy some reusable pouches and flavour your favourite plain yoghurt. The Tamar Valley family tub also works out a similar cost per 100g, but is higher in saturated fat that the products above.