Sophia Procter with her Thomas and Friends Munchy Play product
(Picture: Munchy Play)Sophia Procter was communications manager at British Airways for nearly a decade, running the airline’s consumer PR including work on the London 2012 Olympic Games. Shortly after the now-43-year-old returned from maternity leave in 2017, a corporate reshuffle saw Procter face redundancy. Having just invented a kids’ plate with a play track around the edge to lure her fussy son to eat more, she decided to use her redundancy package from BA to start a business of her own.
“I came up with the idea for Munchy Play after a long day at work. I had just picked my son up from nursery, and had ‘mum guilt’ for not spending time with him, so tried to make it up by cooking a nourishing meal. Except, like many 18-month-olds, he had lost all interest in mealtimes. This particular day I’d made him a curry from scratch, but he refused to come to the table. I realised he was having too much fun with his toys and the dinner table was boring. So, I grabbed the trains and track he was playing with, and put it around his plate. In that moment everything changed. He not only came to the table, but sat there and ate. That was my lightbulb moment.
