FAQs

We accept your frozen breastmilk in plastic/silicon bags, milkies (and similar breastmilk freezer trays), and snappies. We cannot accept your frozen breastmilk in bottles or glass at this time.

We have freeze-dried a few bags, all the way up to 4500 oz at one time and have many repeat clients who send to us regularly. Our facility can hold upwards of 75,000 oz so the sky's the limit! You're welcome to send in as much as you'd like. Discounts and free services are offered after every 500oz. Pricing is "up to 50 oz" increments, meaning, you don't need to have 50 oz, but anything "up to" is included.

Typical orders take about 3 weeks to process from your service date.

You'll receive status updates every step of the way from when:

• your order is placed
• we receive your stash
• when your stash is documented
• when the magic is happening
• when it's almost ready to come home, and
• when it's on the way home/ready for pick up.
  
  If you're shipping, tracking details are sent all 3 ways and your Booby Shipper is GPS tracked.
  
  Orders over 600 oz may take longer, but we do our very best to get stashes back home ASAP.
  
  Rush services are available if you're in a pinch.

I hear ya mama, you don’t have time to be sorting and counting your breastmilk bags! So here are two easy hacks to see just how much breastmilk you have in your stash:

Hack #1

1. Place your stash in a grocery bag and weigh on a bathroom scale.
2. Divide the number by 6.5lbs and x 100oz. Eg: 20lbs of breastmilk/6.5lbs x100 = 307oz

Hack #2

100oz of breastmilk will comfortably fit into two-large Ziploc freezer bags

*if you can easily seal the bag – you’re good to go!

No, sorry mama.  We have strict policies and procedures to maintain the highest level of health and safety. Every mama’s breastmilk is processed separately so you can trust knowing your breastmilk is always exclusively handled.

Booby Food is the first and only regulated breastmilk freeze-drying service in the world. We hold licences issued by Health Canada's CFIA, AHS and are FDA registered and our service is ‘by appointment only.’

From the time we receive your breastmilk, it is documented on paper, in photos and video. You receive status updates as your stash moves along the process from when it arrives at our facility, when it's documented, when the magic is happening and when it's almost ready to come home and when it's on the way home/ready for pick up.

Your breastmilk is always exclusively handled and freeze-dried it's own private chamber - never alongside other clients.

Booby Food is required to keep very detailed tracking systems in place to uphold and exceed quality standards and good practice to maintain our licenses. Booby Shippers are GPS tracked, and once your stash arrives at the Booby Food facility, time, date and signature logs are kept along each step of the process.

We share featured client stories on our social media showing the whole process from start to finish and tag clients (if given their handles), so they can watch and follow along with their own Booby Food being made. Check out our client stories on our Instagram Highlights.

Booby Food holds a food handling permit from Alberta Health Services for the processing of breastmilk. We operate out of an approved facility and it is inspected regularly.

As the first breastmilk freeze-drying service available direct to mamas, Booby Food underwent a very lengthy process to be able to operate. We worked alongside health inspectors, food safety managers and government officials to ensure the utmost health and safety protocols were met and exceeded to bring this service direct to you.

Since Booby Food was the first to offer freeze-drying services for breastmilk direct to mamas, we had to request a novel food determination from Health Canada. We were required to submit supporting evidence for their review before we were able to gain permission from AHS and begin operations at our approved facility.

Breastmilk contains an enzyme called, lipase. Lipase is naturally occurring and helps to break down fat for baby to digest. Sometimes mamas have a higher amount of this enzyme that can change the taste or smell of their breastmilk. While it’s completely fine for babes, their taste preferences are unique (my guy stopped taking a bottle at 3 months, ohh the amount of breastmilk I had to throw out *tear*).

Freeze-drying won’t reduce the amount of lipase in your breastmilk, (because it’s so good at retaining nutrients) but removing the water from the breastmilk reduces the activity of this enzyme and seems to make the breastmilk much milder in taste and smell.

While every babe’s taste and smell preferences are different, mamas have shared with us that their babe actually preferred bottles made from their freeze-dried breastmilk vs. thawed breastmilk.

If your babe does still prefer their breastmilk fresh from the tap, you can rest easy knowing your hard work won’t go to waste because you can add your freeze-dried breastmilk powder to their foods as they grow!

One of the easiest ways to see if you have high lipase breastmilk is to open up a bag of breastmilk that has been in the freezer the longest. If you’ve followed the expressed breastmilk storage and handling guidelines, but it still has an an off smell/taste – it may be high lipase.

Yes! You can certainly reconstitute your Booby Food back into liquid form for a bottle. When making up a baby bottle, treat your Booby Food with the same safety and hygiene standards as if you were using powdered formula. You can prep bottles up to 24hrs in advance, just like powdered infant formula too.

Water content in breastmilk varies from mama to mama, you’ll receive your own customized ratio of water to Booby Food.

When you receive your Booby Food back, you’ll be given a personalized breakdown on measuring your Booby Food. Aways work with your health care provider to determine how much fortification your babe needs, if necessary. We now offer lab certified nutritional analysis for your Booby Food where you can get your own nutrition facts (cal, total fat, protein & carbohydrates) so you can fortify with precision.

That will depend on how much breastmilk your babe is drinking per bottle. For every 100oz we freeze-dry, you can remake that 100oz back into bottles. You can easily customize bottles by using as much or little powder as you’d like. Breastmilk varies in water content from mama to mama (and pumping session to pumping session you may have noticed). When you get your Booby Food back, you’ll have your own water ratio that’s specific to your breastmilk. Typically this ratio will range between 3-5oz water per 15g bag.

Breastmilk contains an average of 88% water, but every mama’s breastmilk will vary in water content. Typically for 100oz, you’ll get about 17-30 15g Booby Food pouches back. If your receive more pouches, you had more richer, fattier breastmilk and less water is needed to make a bottle (closer to 3.00oz). If you receive less pouches, it means that you had more water in your breastmilk and more water is needed to make a bottle (closer to 5.00oz). Either way – it's the equivalent to 100oz of YOUR breastmilk.

Yes, when we freeze-dry 100oz of your breastmilk, you’ll be able to remake that 100oz back into bottles. Because your breastmilk is kept frozen the entire time, any losses are extremely minimal. What little that may occur would be when opening bags if there’s some residual milk on the sides of the bags, in the corners or in the zip seal if the bags are overfilled. You can see just how little breastmilk is lost by checking out behind the scenes client stories on Instagram.

Breastmilk varies from day to day (and by the hour), so you may notice that your expressed breastmilk can change in color, volume and consistency – always adapting and changing. Because of this, convenience and nutrition are key for our Booby Food clients. We combine all of your breastmilk together before freeze-drying so your babe will be given a wide range of nutrients in every bag from your entire breastfeeding journey. It’s like a powerhouse of nutrition in every single bag! You’re given just ONE water ratio for every bag so you can customize how much or little you need for your babe.

Your breastmilk isn’t homogenized like store bought milk or formula – separation happens. You may notice this after your breastmilk has been in the fridge or freezer there is a clear line between your fattier and more watery breastmilk. A very small percentage of our clients may notice that their Booby Food doesn’t blend as perfectly smooth and silky (fat and water foes, ya know). This is rare, but it happens with mamas who have very high amounts of fat in their breastmilk. It can occur with bottles mades from your freshly expressed, thawed or freeze-dried breastmilk. It’s not a sign that your breastmilk has gone bad – but that there’s more nutritious fat particles inside! Yay for babe!

If you’re among the 5% – Here are a few tips to help blend in your Booby Food better:

• Make sure your water isn’t too cool before mixing - if you’re prepping bottles up to 24hrs in advance with cooled water – simply just warm the bottle up and shake to blend.
• Don’t be afraid to shake your Booby Food to mix (a common misconception is that you can’t shake breastmilk)
• For all kinds of breastmilk (freshly expressed, thawed or freeze-dried) run your covered bottle under warm tap water to release the fat from sticking to the sides and shake to blend in again.

We do have clients that are able to get part or all of their Booby Food service covered. Client’s who are eligible will submit under nutritional services, kinesiology or a health spending account. As a certified holistic nutritional practitioner and kinesiologist, my nutrition number is included on every invoice. I can also provide an estimate for you to submit before hand.

The long term benefits of freeze-drying breastmilk has been researched since the 1950s! Yes, almost 70 years ago researchers were recommending freeze-drying breastmilk as a better alternative to preserving nutrients vs. deep freezing. Select milk banks around the world have freeze-dried their donor breastmilk as far back as the 1980s and have used it in children’s hospitals to help support at-risk babies. Check out what the scientific, evidence based research shows on the long-term preservation of nutrients, enzymes, antibodies, HMOs etc. in our Research section.

YES! You can find out exactly how many calories, total fat, protein and carbohydrates your Booby Food contains. With your nutrition facts, you can share your 3rd party lab-tested results with your health care provider, making it a great option for fortification.

YES! According to the CDC’s guidelines on expressed breastmilk storage and The Library of Congress: “freezing keeps food safe almost indefinitely”. Recommended storage times are for best quality. The CDC’s recommendations say that breastmilk is still acceptable at 12m, when stored in the freezer (upright or deep freezer are the same now). Your breastmilk doesn’t “expire” or “go bad” after 12m, it just won’t be as plentiful in nutrients as when it was freshly expressed. We have freeze-dried breastmilk older than 2 years for mamas who use it to add to their babe’s foods.

Pricing depends on the amount you’d like freeze-dried. We don’t have a ‘minimum’ amount required, because every drop counts!  We freeze-dry in “batches” of up to 50oz at a time because we’re limited to how much weight we can place in the chamber at a time.  Whether you have 10oz or 49oz, it will be the same procedure: prep, freeze-drying, packaging and triple cleaning/disinfecting/sanitizing.

For more, check out our booking page!

Everything is included in the total price, no shipping estimates or follow up invoices required. Just select the amount you’d like freeze-dried and your shipping preference. Easy peasy Booby squeezy.

If you’re shipping, you can pay full price or a deposit option. If selecting a deposit, the remaining will be due when your Booby Food is ready to come home.

Absolutely not! You will not automatically charged for the next level of service without prior consent. We specifically ask what you’d like us to do if the amount of frozen breastmilk we receive is more than the amount you had originally booked for.

On the flip side, if you send in less than what you had originally booked for, we will adjust the service amount down automatically. You are only charged for the amount of breastmilk we freeze-dry.

We accept shipments using our GPS-tracked All-in-One Booby Shipper with our friends at FedEx. If you'd prefer to DIY ship, please contact us and you’re in Alberta, check out Jazoo Courier for awesome next day prices.  They work with our local milk bank so you can rest easy they’re experienced with handling frozen breastmilk.

Store in a cool, dry, dark place, (like your pantry or fridge).  Because Booby Food is your own freeze-dried raw breastmilk, the main culprits are moisture, light, air and heat. Bags are resealable and we put a moisture absorber in every bag for extra protection.

When still sealed, according to the USDA, and FoodSafety.gov and The Red Cross, powdered milk is safe almost indefinitely, but studies show that it’s of best quality if used within 3-5 years, when stored properly.  Freeze-dried food lasts longer because the moisture has been taken out. With our special food grade, resealable extra thick mylar packaging, you have an added layer of protection against oxygen, heat and light.  For even more peace of mind, we also add in a moisture absorber in every packet. When opened, we recommend to use within 2 weeks. If you live in a very humid climate, shelf life may vary after opening.

The information and research found on this website is to be used for educational purposes only. Always consult your healthcare provider before starting any new health related produce/service.