Your pregnancy - week by week

About us

Cow & Gate

Cow & Gate is the number 1 baby feeding brand in the UK. Dedicated to providing tailored nutrition that babies love, Cow & Gate produces milks for the healthy growth and development of bottlefed babies and tasty, nutritionally balanced foods for babies and toddlers.

To help guarantee the best quality, we have all our milk, fruit, vegetables, cereals and meat ingredients grown especially for us. We then test and check at every stage to make sure our products meet the highest standards.

Cow & Gate actively encourages breastfeeding as the best start to life. Our infant milks are a safe and nutritious alternative for babies and toddlers who are not breastfed, for whatever reason.

Meeting your baby's nutritional needs

Our expert team of scientists, dietitians and nutritionists ensure our baby milks and foods always have the right balance of nutrients and ingredients for every stage of infant growth. Through close links with the medical community, our highly skilled team is always at the forefront of research and development into infant nutrition.

Feeding for life

We're committed to helping you give your baby the best possible nutritional start from weaning, with a balanced diet they'll love as they grow and develop. We call this commitment Feeding for Life.

We understand that one of the most essential things in the first three years of life is the food we put into our bodies. It's important for the healthy growth of your baby's rapidly developing brain, body and immune system. And, by giving your baby a nutritionally balanced diet, you're also helping establish life long foundations for healthy eating habits.

Protecting your baby and the environment

We control the way our ingredients are grown and produced. That means we meet legal requirements on pesticides and herbicides and all our suppliers conform to our strict environmental guidelines.

We no longer package our milks in tin cans and wherever we can we always use recycled materials. Our factories meet all national environmental regulations on waste emissions and the use of energy and water.

Breast is best

Cow & Gate encourages breastfeeding to help give your baby the very best start in life. But if, for any reason, your baby is not breastfed, our infant milks are a safe and nutritious alternative.

We make sure our infant milks are marketed sensitively and in line with all legal requirements. We also believe that Cow & Gate has a role to play in education so we work to support the educational needs of healthcare professionals.We’ve formed close links with the medical community to place our highly skilled team at the forefront of research and development into baby nutrition.

We also offer an information service to parents and carers answering questions about our products, policies and infant feeding in general.

Company history

1711 Cow & Gate started out as a small grocery shop in Guildford at Number 20 High Street, owned by the Gates family.

1887 The two brothers Charles and Leonard Gates decided to expand into the dairy trade. They opened up a new business called The West Surrey Central Dairy. To ensure best quality milk supplies they built their own creameries in the West of England, and also in Ireland.

Their best-selling product was fresh cream, sold in distinctive little brown jugs with a label showing a cow looking through a gate. Among their customers were Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York. Their label became famous, and it soon became known as 'Cow & Gate' cream.

1900 The success of their cream business gave the Gates brothers a problem - huge quantities of leftover skimmed milk. At this time there was no public demand for low fat milks, so they bought the latest drying equipment from America and began to sell milk powder to the bakery and catering trade. They continued to use the same ‘cow looking through the gate’ label.

1904 The company received a bulk order for milk powder from Dr. Killick Millard the Medical Officer of Health in Leicester to use as a baby food. Dr. Millard had read reports from America that the health and survival rates of poorer children in New York were greatly improved when powdered milk was added to their diets. 15% of infants in Leicester were failing to reach their first birthday and Dr. Millard hoped to improve their chances.

After conducting trials Dr. Millard reported similar improvements and published the results in medical journals. Soon, demand for the new baby food came from doctors and hospitals all over the country. This first link with the medical profession would eventually turn the West Surrey Central Dairy into Cow & Gate the babyfeeding company.

1908 The first advert for Cow & Gate baby milk appeared.

1920 The Cow & Gate brand had by now become so strongly associated with baby feeding that it was adopted as the company name. That same year the first Cow & Gate Baby Book was published to help doctors and midwives pass on the latest information and advice on feeding babies to new mothers.

1959 Cow & Gate joined up with United Dairies to form Unigate, one of the leading UK dairy companies.

1976 The company moved its headquarters from Guildford to Trowbridge, in Wiltshire.

Present day Today, Cow & Gate is part of Group Danone, a leading global company specialising in health through food and beverages.

Cow & Gate still work closely with the medical profession to develop the best foods for babies with a wide range of nutritional needs and we still provide educational materials to midwives and health visitors.

See http://www.danone.com for more details.