Ella's Kitchen founder Paul Lindley takes his place at the top table of children's food Ella's Kitchen was set up in 2006 in the house near Reading that Mr Lindley remortgaged to fund the business's development. It started after two years of research with two products and one customer in the shape of Sainsbury's, the supermarkets group. "The baby food market was very functional at the time," says Mr Lindley. It hadn't changed. There had been no innovation in that market for a generation. There were a few big brands. The food was in glass jars. The branding and reasons to buy hadn't changed, even though people's lifestyles had fundamentally changed. He decided the company would differ by saying it put children first. The business innovated with recipes and flexible pouches as Mr Lindlay sought to inject into the product the fun of having his now six-year-old daughter, Ella. "I wanted to use emotion in the brand," he says. Consumers are at the most emotional point of their lives when they have a baby. I wanted to work with that emotion and the benefit of being a small entrepreneurial company and use my own family as an experience people could relate to, in contrast to the less personal big brands we were competing against. Ella's Kitchen employs 60 people near Henley-on-Thames. It has 80 products and a 19pc share of the UK market, putting it behind Danone's Cow & Gate and Heinz. The firm has supplier deals with all the supermarket groups and exports to 12 countries, including Norway, where it has a 30pc market share. The data suggest a baby is eating an Ella product every second of every day somewhere around the world. Lindley says he is proud Ella's Kitchen has increased turnover to £50m and helped grow the baby food category during a recession. "The goal was never to sell the company," he says. The goal was never to make 'X' amount of profits or 'X' amount of sales. The goal was to use our products to improve children's health. The sale two weeks ago came when he decided after looking at options such as private equity and bank funding that it was the best way to realise the company's ambition of increasing what it calls "tiny tummy touchpoints" - servings of its organic fruit and vegetables. Hain, which is quoted on the Nasdaq, will combine Ella's Kitchen with its Earth's Best brand, which pioneered organic infant foods in the US and has a 15pc share of the US baby food market. It comes in behind Nestle's Gerber, which has about 60pc. Mr Lindley will become chief executive of Hain's global infant, toddler and kids division and says he believes it can increase the combined number of sales to 4bn or 5bn a year globally. "One of the most important things in business is timing," he says. Timing around an exit and around your next move is a skill and something people should think about as a core part of business. I think we have timed this perfectly. It's right internally. And when you look at the marketplace in America, there are a lot of small players [so] there will be consolidation. You don't want to be the bridesmaid at the end when everybody else has consolidated. You want to pick the best partner for you. Mr Lindley is selling all his shares to Hain and is not locked in for a set period or incentivised by an "earn-out" arrangement. He says he is motivated by developing the business for the long term. He says: "I'm staying on because I believe that the opportunity for me and my team in the UK to run a business with a turnover that's not £50m to £60m but more than £200m, can seriously make inroads into improving children's health around the world. I believe we can continue to innovate and produce better products for babies, toddlers and children. It's a humbling thing - the world's first organic baby food [business] and a significant part of a major public company in America is being put in the hands of a British entrepreneurial team that has grown its business from nothing in seven years. Our combined baby food division is 15pc of the overall sales of the Hain Celestial Group. This is effectively inward investment in the UK for the creativity and entrepreneurialism that we have brought. So, far from selling out early, Ella's Kitchen could soon be set for the truly big time.