Welcome!
My name is Jade Etchells, and I’m a local mom with a passion for food, kids, and making life just a little easier for parents.
Getting kids to eat all of the things their bodies need is often tricky, and oftentimes food needs to feel safe before they even care if it’s delicious.
That’s where Beam Bento comes in.
I create fresh, made-from-scratch lunches that introduce nourishing ingredients in ways that feel fun, familiar, and approachable, helping even the pickiest eaters explore new foods, one bite at a time, while giving more adventurous eaters the variety to keep their curiosity growing.
About Beam Bento
Beam Bento is a passion project that became real.
After a round of mass layoffs in the tech world, I decided it was time to pursue a dream. The idea of making Beam Bento a reality had always been in me, and finally, it felt like the right time to make it happen.
Beam Bento was first born out of a combination of a love of food, a love of kids, and a deep understanding of the mental load parents carry when it comes to packing lunches and worrying about whether their kids are getting the nutrients they need.
The idea that this passion could lift some of that weight, that it could take just one more thing off a parent's mind, felt like exactly the right path.
But it isn't just about getting nutrients in, because it's not always that easy.
Before food can be loved, it often has to feel safe and comforting to a child. My mission with Beam Bento is to introduce nutrients in familiar ways, show kids how delicious new-ish foods can be, and slowly expand their willingness to be a little bit more adventurous with food.
Sometimes that looks like my cauliflower mac and cheese, which visibly only looks like the macaroni they are used to, but the flavors are deepened with an equal amount of heirloom cauliflower blended right into the sauce.
Other times, it looks like a variety of cucumbers with homemade ranch. The concept to me is simple: take a vegetable many kids are already comfortable with, like a cucumber, and offer them multiple varieties of the same thing. This creates a chance that they may be willing to try something “new-ish.” And the homemade ranch just helps seal the deal.
I also shop for my boxes primarily at our local farmers market because I know that with many kids, we have one chance, one bite, to prove that a new food can be good and worth trying. When something is in season and freshly grown, it is at its maximum deliciousness. That's how we secure bite two.
At Beam Bento, I take your kids' eating, health, and love of food seriously, because I take my own kids' eating, health, and love of food seriously.
I hope Beam Bento feels like a little moment of joy in the middle of their day, a lunch they are excited to open, curious to explore, and proud to finish.
I am so excited you are here, I am so excited for your kids to try the lunches, and I am so excited that Beam Bento is officially real.
Happy eating!