CALGARY — From baby food goop to Hollywood glam.

Melissa Gunning is riding her eco-chic baby food storage invention all the way to Beverly Hills, Calif., where she has been invited to set up a booth in the Boom Boom Room Baby and Big Kid Gifting Suite this weekend, prior to Sunday night's Golden Globe Awards. While showing off her Wean Green company's convenient and cute glass cubes, the Calgary mompreneur will mingle with dozens of film and TV stars looking to stock their swag bags with the hottest parenting products. (Follow Gunning's L.A. adventures on Twitter, @weangreen.)

"I am a lucky mama," says Gunning, a 20-something mom who is bringing the inspiration for her business — daughters Talia, 2, and Rayne, 8 — and her husband Kevin to share in the excitement. "As a small company, we don't have a large marketing budget. It will give us a lot of exposure and a chance to meet some interesting people."

It's the latest in a string of good news to bless Gunning's cubes, which are one of the hottest eco-parenting products on the market, recently earning product awards from iParenting Media and ptpamedia.com.

"There are no other tempered glass baby food containers," Gunning says. "Our style is definitely unique - it's really important to us."

So what's all the fuss about? Gunning's four-ounce (114-millilitre) tempered glass cubes come in sets of four. Each cube gets its own colour of bright silicone lid — Raspberry, Blueberry, Peas and Carrots — and special "smart clips" on each lid keep the food from leaking into your diaper bag.

Heavy-duty and square, the containers can go straight from freezer to microwave and also come in handy for adult snacks, spices, sauces and leftovers. The glass is safe for food storage — no bisphenol-A, phthalates, PVC (polyvinyl chloride) or plasticizers — and is recyclable.

Edmonton-area parents can buy the cubes at Birth Source (5024 106th Ave.), Planet Organic, Princess and the Pea (9654 142nd St.) or online at weangreen.com ($25). They're also found in stores across Australia, the United Kingdom and Malaysia.

Not bad for a product that didn't hit retail shelves until last August. But like most overnight successes, this one took years of hard work to bring about. The idea popped into Gunning's head eight years ago, when she started feeding her daughter solids. Though she used glass to store food for her and her husband, she froze her infant daughter Rayne's organic homemade food in plastic ice cube trays - even though she worried about what the plastic might contain. "My friends make fun of how eco-friendly I am," Gunning says. "But I think it's extremely important to get rid of plastics for kids."

By the time her second daughter was born, stylish, ecological choices were available for everything from cotton diapers to swaddling blankets — but not baby-portion glass containers good for freezing and reheating food. So the former elementary school teacher started calling tempered glass container manufacturers, asking them to start making baby food containers. (The tempering process makes glass strong enough to withstand dramatic temperature swings.) Eventually, a Canadian glass manufacturer offered to help her reach a company that agreed to produce her design.

Wean Green's cubes are now moulded at a factory in China that makes glass up to Gunning's safety standards - no lead or cadmium. A factory in New York tempers the jars, making them strong enough to put in the hands of an infant.

This fall, Wean Green hopes to start selling glass sandwich containers for kids' lunches, along with organic baby food cookbooks. And someday, Gunning wants to head a classroom again. "Teaching and Wean Green both offer me the opportunity to help children," she says.

tedwards@calgaryherald.com