ENFANT TERRIBLE

Frustrated Parents Speculate Gerber Rigged Its ‘Spokesbaby’ Contest

Some speculated that the company picked a winner before the competition ever began.

It’s common for a public official to be questioned, but rarely does it happen before their first birthday. Shortly after 9-month-old Isa Slish was named the winner of Gerber’s 2022 Photo Search—an annual open contest to select the baby food company’s new “spokesbaby” and “Chief Growing Officer”—early last month, some parents flocked to social media to speculate that the competition had been engineered from the start. Baby Isa, who likes to laugh when her older sister says “toeskis!” according to a company bio, was chosen after a month, with Gerber saying she had beaten out 225,000 other babies. “It gets a little fishy every year,” a mother told The New York Times, which first reported the comment sections’ baby blues on Sunday. “I know Gerber had to at least collect hundreds of thousands of pictures and videos, and it did not take them long to pick a winner.” Some users speculated that the company had worked with an agency for the competition, or that Isa had been selected before the search ever began, allegations that Gerber has denied. “It’s important to us that we gave each submission the fair chance it deserves,” Gerber said in a statement to the Times. “Rest assured—we did not miss a single smile.”