In days gone by the babyfood category consisted of little more than rows of miniature glass jars of indistinguishable puréed matter - and of course Farley's Rusks - but the market today is a lot more sophisticated with the introduction of many premium ranges.

One major player is Babylicious, which shares the same premium positioning as the Plum Baby brand but is aimed at the frozen rather than chilled category. The company, founded by Sally Preston in 2002, targets mothers who used to prepare homemade meals for children and then freeze them. Its products use only kitchen cupboard ingredients and contain no additives or preservatives.

There are a few players in the frozen category, including Miniscoff and Goodness Knows, but Babylicious is one of the best known and biggest with sales of £3.5m.

However, its frozen positioning poses challenges, not least because consumers don't tend to look for babyfood in the freezer aisles, says Preston. "We have created a new category but we would certainly benefit from new players. We don't really have a specific home at the moment," she says.

The company's main competition comes from the chilled sector, but Preston says that new signage, expected to be introduced into Tesco stores from next month, directing customers to the frozen aisles for baby and kids' meals will finally put frozen food on a more even keel with chilled.

Like Plum Baby, she also believes there is a continued move towards premium meals, but says that these products do not cannibalise sales of standard jarred babyfood.

"We are growing the category and recruiting people who used to make food for their children rather than buy babyfood in jars," she says.

The company has expanded into new areas with a Kiddylicious range of frozen food for pre-school children and most recently a Snackylicious range of bagged fruit crisps, which it launched last month. Preston hopes to expand into more areas in the future. n