Schmuggles was set up in July 2004 by Andy Berry, father of two and a stay-at-home dad.

 

“I’m interested in the science and sometimes money saving gains of using modern eco friendly products. I started giving people advice on the financial, health and environmental benefits of using cotton nappies. I soon realised I could sell the nappies, like many mums up and down the country. I just didn’t like being tied in to selling the products I was told to! So I set myself up as an independent business, picking everything I sell myself, based on my own experience as much as possible. This means I only ever sell things that I believe in myself”. The name ‘Schmuggles’ is actually the ‘cute’ name we gave our first son and it somehow seemed an apt name for our business too. The name stuck and my customers and suppliers don’t tend to forget the name once they have heard it. We have been assumed to be German or simply a franchise, but Schmuggles is us and we are Schmuggles.”

 

Schmuggles has grown since it began. We used to just sell cotton nappies but now supply eco friendly products from around forty suppliers, including products for breast feeding too. Schmuggles has gained customers from around the world including Australia, North America, France, Southern Ireland and all over the United Kingdom.

 

“I am not an Eco Warrior and I am certainly not into any sort of crusade. I do, however, want to make modern eco friendly products accessible to everyone, regardless of their budget or ability to use the internet. To this end, I visit green days when I can, to make these products available to people, many of whom have never seen the wide variety of eco friendly products actually available.”

 

We are passionately committed and involved with supporting women breast feed. We have been involved with a workshop run by the local midwives and health visitors, designed to encourage and equip mums to be with the knowledge they need to breast feed their babies. Andy talks about the practicalities of using expressed breast milk to feed children, drawn from his own experience, as Jo, his wife and pillar of strength and stability, expressed breast milk for both of her children, returning to work around four months after each child was born.

 

“Whether you want to go back to work full time after a few months, or simply go out once in a while, the principles are the same for using expressed breast milk. It is just the quantities involved that change. The workshop is simply a collection of the experiences and mistakes we went through whilst maintaining and achieving  our goal of using only breast milk instead of formula milk, until the children could switch to cows milk once they had turned 12 months old. We show women why they should not use a bottle to feed a breast feed baby and what they can use instead”