During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, Mekė Baby founder and Melbourne mum Elysia Krstevski found herself in the middle of a grocery store with no means of warming up a bottle of milk for her three-month-old baby daughter.
It was amongst the fresh produce and canned goods aisles that she had the idea for Australia’s first portable milk warmer.
After spending three years, since March 2020, researching the portable milk warmer that can warm up breast milk, formula, cow milk or even water using its USB Type C and all-day battery life temperature control processor, the now mum-of-two launched Mekė Baby with her husband Chris in April 2023.
The first year of business saw Mekė Baby turn over approximately $500,000, recording a 255% growth from its first three months, April to June 2023, until now.
Krstevski told SmartCompany that she wanted to find a solution to make the lives of parents and children easier.
“It was during the COVID-19 lockdowns, stage four restrictions, and I had mastitis,” she recalled.
“I was suffering really bad [from] the pain and we were at a grocery store. I remember physically being unable to let any milk out because I was in so much pain.
“I had some spare milk with me, but because the feeding rooms were closed, the cafes were closed, during that time you weren’t even allowed to sit on a chair, I had no way to heat up my milk or feed [my daughter] Armani.
“She was screaming and I remember thinking that night I cannot be in this situation where I’m not in control again. So I started researching and I [said] ‘there’s literally nothing out there, there’s no safe methods to practically heat your milk while you’re on the go.’
“I just started the process. I had to find a solution and then once I found a solution for myself, I was like mums, dads, everybody would love this product.”
Despite being approached by larger retailers including Baby Bunting and The Memo, as well as distributors in Singapore and New Zealand within the first six months of business, Krstevski told SmartCompany that she was focusing on growing the Mekė Baby business.
Research by SmartCompany has found that Mekė Baby products have been listed online on The Memo website and the Baby Bunting marketplace.
According to the Baby Bunting marketplace, there are currently 16,000 new products online, and states that its “Marketplace is a collection of products that extends our current range. Baby Bunting has partnered with selected third-party sellers (‘marketplace sellers’) to curate an assortment of new brands and products to better help you in the early years of parenthood”.
When asked about the total value of Mekė Baby, Krstevski confirmed that she was still determining and processing what the value of the business is.
“Because it is just our first year. We haven’t had an evaluation. We’ve turned over around $500,000 in revenue and we’ve just reinvested every single dollar back into the business and product development,” she says.
“My husband and I have bootstrapped this whole thing and we both still have full-time roles. We do have some contractors, but really, it’s just my husband and I who are trying to bring this vision to life.”
As well as Australia, Mekė Baby has also just established a home base in the United Kingdom, with the brand currently distributing to Australia, the UK, Singapore and New Zealand.
Krstevski told SmartCompany that Mekė Baby has had a lot of opportunities for distribution and opportunities overseas in the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK and New Zealand.
“But we’ve really just tried to keep it contained. At the moment, our primary stockists [are] The Memo, Baby Bunting Online and we’ve got a few other small regional boutiques,” she says.
“We were approached by Baby Bunting and some other big distributors.
“But at the moment we [want] to focus on our brand alignment and our strategy. We’re keeping it pretty much online.
“We are deliberately not expanding on any major distribution at the moment. We’ve had quite a few opportunities and we have turned them down.”
On Tuesday night Mekė Baby won the Commbank Young Hero Award 2024 in the Most Innovative Tech Product category and was also named recently as a finalist in the Roar Awards.
Krstevski and Mekė Baby have also won the following awards: Gold for the AusMumpreneur Product Innovation Award 2023, Gold for the SHE com Baby Travel Award 2023, Silver in the Project Baby Awards (UK) and Runner Up in Positive Birth Company Awards 2024 (UK).
With the UK launch still fresh for Mekė Baby, Krstevski said it didn’t initially plan to go international so quickly but hopes to expand its footprint in Asia following interest from Singapore.
“It just sort of happened. We were nominated for awards in the UK because there was an Australian that had taken our products over there and we were approached by the British Vogue,” she said.
“These unexpected turns of events have fast-tracked our ambitions.
“We are currently just committed to staying at the forefront of innovation, pushing those boundaries in the baby industry, and then eventually taking it globally.
“We’ve just launched in the UK. We’re moving into a warehouse at the moment. So we’re focusing on there and then we’ll start to look at other corners of the world.”
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