Eleanor's Garden Baby Food July Update

Last month we were excited to announce our practice weekend and asked you all to join us as we checked our machines, invited ladies from the surrounding village in to peel carrots while we conducted a full on baby food test run. Sadly, the theme of this last month has been delay. There were delays in getting the final touches done on the factory, like fire proof paint on the pillars and installing counter tops in the handwashing areas. And there were more delays with our equipment instillation, waiting for our clean water machine to be delivered and installed properly (until then we have no running water to wash vegetables), waiting three weeks for the pressure gauges to our retort machine to be tested and recorded by the proper government bureau, and pumps that work fine one day and were spewing water all over the next. All of these delays have meant that we have been unable to simulate an actual production run through with the local ladies we have started to build a relationship with. It is easy to see the frustration in all the delays, to chalk it up to an uncooperative local government, or to view them as attacks by the enemy but the more things that came up this month the more we began to wonder if it really is the hand of God, slowing us down.

Back in our March edition of the Eleanor’s Garden Baby Food Update, we asked you all to be seeking Father’'s wisdom on how we should proceed with our Quality Standard application. We were trying to push hard so that we could submit our application under the Quality Inspection Bureau, before the responsibility to process this paper work passed to the Food and Drug Administration. When we missed the April 1st deadline we thought we had missed our chance to get in under the old system, but our QS consultant still seemed to advise full steam ahead, assuming that until the hand over is complete we might be able to get in under the wire with the former bureau. To this end we have been signing contracts with box distributers, talking to fruit and vegetable growers, repeatedly rescheduling test run days, all in hopes of having actual filled baby food pouches ready to turn in for inspection. But, as aforementioned, we have been delayed again and again. We were talking about these frustrations the other day and finally realized maybe this isn’t all negative. Rather, maybe it is an answer to all of our prayers. We asked for His wisdom and leading as to which bureau to apply under, and despite all of our diligent attempts to move forward, it seems we will have to wait. We are trying to praise and thank Him even though the answer looks very different than we originally anticipated.

Eleanor’s Garden Baby Food Team.