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This Yumi vs Cerebelly comparison evaluates two of the most popular baby food choices side by side. When you’re looking for great baby food, you certainly want it to be safe, healthy, tasty, and genuinely attractive for your children. Most of the brands in this field understand parents’ preferences very well.
When it comes to Yumi and Cerebelly, though, the choice is not easy. Both brands focus on providing our kids with the healthiest and most beneficial nutrition to help them thrive and grow properly. But eventually, each of them will probably suit a slightly different type of customer.
Let’s check the main differences between these baby food brands.
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Main Differences Between Yumi vs Cerebelly
The main differences between Yumi vs Cerebelly are:
- Yumi baby food comes in reusable jars, whereas Cerebelly is sold in pouches.
- Yumi also sells vitamins and small snacks, whereas Cerebelly offers its range of smart bars.
- Yumi has finger food options for older toddlers, too, whereas Cerebelly only has purees in its portfolio.
- Yumi works as a standard subscription service, whereas Cerebelly offers subscriptions only as one of the options.
- Yumi is more expensive, whereas Cerebelly is more affordable.
Yumi vs Cerebelly – The Baby Food Brands Compared
Besides all the aforementioned differences, Yumi and Cerebelly have quite many things in common too. They both, for example, boast organic composition and avoid controversial ingredients like GMOs, artificial additives, gluten, preservatives, and added sugar.
Furthermore, both brands offer their baby food in the form of convenient meal delivery, and you can even take advantage of their subscription plans which take away most of the planning and even somewhat cut the costs. Let’s evaluate each brand individually to uncover some of the important nuances.
Yumi – In Depth
Yumi has been all about healthy nutrition ever since this popular label was established. The brand’s mission is to provide our kids with as rich, healthy, and clean food as possible during the first 1,000 days of their lives, which are considered to be the most important period for the proper development of brain, body, metabolism, and immune system.
The team behind the brand includes a former Executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), associate chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Yale University, and globally recognized experts on metabolic health. As the brand likes to emphasize, every ingredient it uses has its purpose, and all of its recipes are scientifically backed.
Let’s explore Yumi and its portfolio of products in detail.
Ingredients
Just like you would most likely expect from a premium baby food brand, Yumi contains only the best and safest ingredients. These meals are all fully organic. They do not contain any preservatives, which might shorten their shelf life, but I am sure that’s a reasonable compromise.
Every Yumi container comes with a full list of ingredients and detailed information on nutritional values, so you’re always aware of the composition of each dose.
Yumi food is free from added sugar, gluten, or any type of additional fortification. It avoids all the major allergens (including dairy), and it also proudly bears a Clean Label certification for avoiding heavy metals and 400+ other toxic substances so that you can serve it even to the most sensitive infants with complete peace of mind.
Taste and Portions
Each portion of Yumi meal consists of 4 ounces of fresh and organic baby food. Some parents with smaller children claim that this is more than their babies could consume at once. But each Yumi meal can be stored for up to 24 hours in a refrigerator when open, so you can easily divide it into smaller portions and serve them throughout the whole day.
The meals in the respective stages adapt to their growing appetite fuelled by their intensifying activity as the kids grow. They gradually change from purees to solid finger food, and the ingredients become more filling over time too.
That means that the portions should always satisfy your kid’s needs, but based on my experience, ordering some healthy Yumi snacks on the side (especially for particularly active toddlers) is always a good idea.
Yumi meals come in 70 different flavors, so your baby will be introduced to an extensive range of new tastes, smells, and textures. You can follow the official Yumi recommendations or mix and match the flavors according to your preferences. Thanks to the handy assessment cards you get with every order, you can easily keep track of your little one’s favorites.
Although taste is a highly individual thing, I believe that it’s safe to say that Yumi meals are remarkably good. The flavors are quite intensive and authentic. So are the textures, so if your baby is already used to generic watery baby food from the supermarket, it might take a while to adapt to this new experience.
On the other hand, it’s probably going to be much easier for kids to get used to standard solid food after eating Yumi meals.
Delivery and Subscription
Babies are highly individual beings – and so are their parents. That’s why Yumi offers customizable plans that can be adapted to your needs as accurately as possible.
First, when you sign up, you will need to create your baby’s individual meal plan. You start by entering your baby’s date of birth – Yumi has 6 different plan stages on offer, and it will suggest the best one for your kid according to the age.
Moreover, you are also encouraged to pick one of the three available sizes of plans. Size 1 means that you’ll only receive a single dose of Yumi food for a day. Whether you supplement this with breastmilk, formula, homemade solid food, or some other baby food products, that is, of course, totally up to you.
Following the same pattern, Size 2 provides you with 2 Yumi meals a day, and Size 3 supplies you with three individual doses of baby food daily, which can even represent a full daily diet for some of the kids.
Yumi is usually delivered right to your doorstep every week. Right until the marked cut-off date (usually it’s Tuesday at 11:59 PM PST the week before your shipment), you can edit, amend, postpone, or skip any of your orders.
Yumi also lets you terminate the subscription or delete your whole account at any stage. Of course, once your current order was already packed or dispatched, you cannot cancel it anymore.
Prices
If you compare Yumi products with most of the competition, you will realize that this is a relatively pricey option. Nevertheless, you are free to customize the plan to your personal needs and possibilities, which can affect the price quite greatly.
The cheapest option that provides you with a single dose of Yumi food per day + 1 (= 8 doses in total per week) costs $35 when paid weekly or $28 when paid every month. The larger your order is, the lower are individual prices of the meals included. If you order 24 jars per week with payments once monthly, a single jar of freshly made Yumi puree can cost you as little as $3.00.
Still, if you compare this to the costs of preparing 4 ounces of veggie-based food for your little one from scratch, it is relatively expensive.
If you’re looking for some ways to cut the expenses, Yumi also offers various discounts, including military and medical staff discounts. In addition, the company also regularly hands out various promo codes and free/discounted trials. Visit their official website for the latest quotes and deals.
Pros:
- Great variety of authentic flavors
- Well-balanced recipes full of fresh ingredients
- The food comes in attractive reusable jars
- Fully organic, free from GMO, allergens, gluten, etc.
- No added sugar
- Natural texture and taste of fresh food
- Subscription can be amended or canceled at anytime
Cons:
- It’s one of the more expensive brands
- Subscription is a must
Cerebelly – In Depth
Cerebelly was created by Dr. Teresa Purzner – a practitioner neurosurgeon who, after becoming a mom herself, wanted to create a food that would truly benefit the baby’s rapidly developing brain.
Teaming up with some of the best pediatricians, nutritionists, and food scientists in the country, Dr. Purzner created a complex range of modern baby food that boasts one of the best-balanced compositions of nutrients on the market.
Cerebelly proudly bears numerous quality certificates, and it’s commonly recommended to parents as one of the cleanest and safest baby food brands on the market. Let’s find out if it can suit your family too.
Ingredients
Cerebelly takes the flawless quality of its ingredients very seriously. After all, the whole concept of this brand is centered around organically sourced and nutritionally balanced recipes designed to help your baby strive in every regard.
Although all quality baby food brands claim to provide clean, safe, and healthy nutrition, Cerebelly is somewhat special in its focus on wholesome brain development. The manufacturer claims that it’s the only baby food on our market with 16 key brain-supporting nutrients, including lutein, zinc, vitamin A, iodine, or iron.
Moreover, Cerebelly’s ingredients are all fully organic, GMO-free, veggie-focused, and free from toxic heavy metals (certified by Clean Label Project®). There’s also no added sugar or salt, and the food is particularly rich in fiber.
Taste and Portions
Just like Yumi, Cerebelly offers its baby food in pre-measured 4-ounces portions. This time, however, you don’t get the food in jars, but it is rather packed in travel-ready squeezable pouches.
I must honestly say that it took me a while to get used to this type of package. To me, pouches were always associated with busy days out, vacations, or long car trips. You put them in your handbag for a ‘hungry baby’ emergency – and they’re truly priceless when that time comes. But pulling them out of a fridge at dinner time seemed somewhat inadequate to me.
Nevertheless, once I’ve managed to overcome this prejudice, I’ve realized that the content of Cerebelly pouches is perfectly suitable for a standard infant meal regardless of the package. Although some products were a bit more watery than I’d prefer (probably to make them easier to suck out of the pouch), the fresh ingredients in them are still easily recognizable.
Cerebelly pouches are divided into several groups by the recommended age, type of flavor, and general style of food they represent. There are even some special editions like festive favorites, smoothie-inspired pouches, and Peppa-themed range. Cerebelly also has lovely smart bars – healthy snacks, which I found particularly delicious and also surprisingly filling.
On the other hand, once your infant is ready to move on from purees to first solid finger food, Cerebelly doesn’t have much to offer anymore, which I see as a great disadvantage.
Delivery and subscription
Cerebelly offers a subscription plan only as one of the options. That means that you can order the products in smaller, middle, or larger bundles on a one-off basis whenever you like, with no strings attached. But if you’re sure you’re going to repeat your orders, you can take advantage of a subscription plan that will save your time, energy, and even some expenses.
This subscription plan can be amended, paused, or canceled anytime – just make sure that you submit your request before your current order is prepared and dispatched. You can even manage your orders conveniently through text messages.
If you subscribe to repeated deliveries, your orders can be expedited every two or every four weeks. In addition, Cerebelly food has a longer shelf life, so you can store them for more weeks.
Prices
If you find Yumi too expensive, Cerebelly will most likely please you with its lower prices. Although the difference might not appear to be very significant at first, if you feed your kid more or less exclusively with pre-prepared baby food, you will notice it very soon.
A standard six-pack of Cerebelly purees, for example, costs around $14.70 – 15.20. That means that a single dose consisting of 4 ounces of baby puree can cost you less than $2.50 here.
If you want to make your Cerebelly purchases even more advantageous, you can register for a subscription program that grants you an automatic 15% discount on all your orders. As a new customer, you also get an automated 10-25% discount on your first order. Moreover, all Cerebelly orders worth at least $45 come with free delivery.
All in all, Cerebelly is a great solution for those who need to stay on budget without compromising the quality and safety of their kids’ nutrition. Check out Cerebelly’s price list on its official website.
Pros:
- Nice variety of baby food
- Competitive prices
- Conveniently packed in portable pouches
- Smart bars – great healthy snacks for older kids
- A subscription plan is optional – not mandatory
- Great taste
- A scientific approach to nutrition
- Top-quality organic ingredients, GMO-free, allergen-free, etc.
Cons:
- Food must be removed from the pouches before heating
- No real solid food options for older kids
Are There Any Alternatives?
Cannot decide on either of the brands I compare in this article? Here are some alternatives you might want to explore instead:
Little Spoon
Little Spoon is a popular baby food brand praised mainly for its great variety, ease of use, and highly competitive value-for-money ratio. This brand is instantly recognizable for its, well, little spoon, which is attached to every portion for even more convenience.
Little Spoon offers a wide array of organic and fresh products ranging from smooth purees for the smallest kids and finger food for toddlers to full meal options for older kids. Of course, all meals on offer are perfectly balanced and safe.
Check out our recent Little Spoon vs. Yumi comparison for more information on this alternative!
Tiny Organics
Tiny Organics is another popular kids’ food delivery service focused on high-quality ingredients and attractive recipes. All food on offer here is made exclusively of organic ingredients. Most of the recipes are plant-based, and you can rest assured that the composition is free from all key allergens, added sugar, or salt.
Tiny Organics food comes in neat pre-portioned doses that usually just need quick heating in your microwave. The menu contains food for both babies and older toddlers.
Our Tiny Organics review will provide you with more details.
Gerber
Gerber baby food can be ordered on a subscription basis with delivery. It’s reliable and convenient, and it is also cheaper than many alternatives. Quality Gerber baby food can cost you less than some of the mediocre products from your local supermarket.
I recently compared Yumi vs. Gerber baby food in detail – read the article for more information.
FAQs
Answer: No. Although the food content of the Cerebelly pouches can or even, in some cases, should be microwaved, the packaging itself is not microwave-safe. Squeeze the content of the pouches into a suitable container or bowl before placing it into your microwave.
Answer: No, for safety reasons, Yumi uses BPA and BPS-free plastic jars instead of real glass. This allows your child to interact with the jars themselves without risking an injury. The jars are reusable and recyclable.
Answer: Yes, Cerebelly thoroughly inspects and tests all of its ingredients to ensure that they are completely free from heavy metals and toxins. The brand is even certified by the Clean Label Project.
The Verdict: Yumi vs Cerebelly
If you’re looking for a healthy, safe, and readily available baby food delivery service, both Yumi and Cerebelly offer reasonable solutions. Both boast first-class organic ingredients, both are prepared in close collaboration with nutritionists and physicians, and both can be conveniently delivered right to your doorstep.
Nevertheless, if I had to choose just one of the two, I would have to prefer Yumi. Although this baby food is amongst the more expensive choices on the market, I believe it’s worth its price.
Yumi comes with thoughtful plans that can cover the whole nutrition of your little one. I also like their reusable jars, the vast range of authentic puree flavors, lovely finger food, and healthy snacks. Most importantly, the kids seem to love Yumi too, which makes the whole ‘feeding operation’ so much easier.
Cerebelly, on the other hand, clearly wins when it comes to pricing. Also, if you need pre-prepared food mostly for on-the-go situations, pouches usually work much better than jars. I also must admit that Cerebelly food tastes great, although the offer is a bit limited in my opinion.
Would you like to read more on this topic? Then you should read our Guide to Finding & Making the Best Baby Food next!
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