Weaning foods

It is often a time of anxiety among parents and they will therefore invariably be looking to you, as a Healthcare Professional, to give guidance on how best to wean their baby.

Everyone knows that foods prepared at home using fresh and appropriate ingredients is the best way to introduce babies to the world of food. Commercial baby foods, however, can make a useful contribution to the weaning diet of babies offering parents variety and reassurance that foods are safe, nutritious and suitable for their baby.
Our Nutrition Standards
Cow & Gate is committed to providing nutritionally balanced recipes for all occasions, from breakfast to dinner and desserts, to help parents provide a varied and balanced diet for their growing child, and assist in the establishment of lifelong healthy eating habits. As well as being strictly regulated by European law (which governs the manufacturing, composition and labelling of baby foods), all of our products are controlled by our own strict internal nutrition standards.

These include standards on fruit, vegetable and meat content, aimed at improving the amount and variety within products, as well as strict limits on salt and sugar.

Sodium & Salt
We have strict controls on the level of sodium within our entire product range - many are more than 50% lower than the legal limits for baby foods. This also means that our sodium levels are usually much lower than products not specially made for babies.

Sugar
We only add sugar where it is necessary to balance taste (e.g. soften the tart taste of yogurt) or where it is a traditional part of a recipe (e.g. rice pudding), and where it is added for this purpose, the amount we add is tightly controlled. The majority of our recipes do not contain added sugar, just the natural sweetness from fruits. This applies to all of our breakfast cereals, meals, fruit pots, drinks and the majority of our desserts range.

Fruit & Vegetables
In recognising that fruit and vegetables form an important part of an infant’s diet, we have ensured that all of our meals contain a variety of vegetables, and that the majority of our desserts are fruit based. We use over 23 different varieties of vegetable within our meals range, from carrots and peas, to aubergine and spinach, helping to ensure a varied diet and encourage preferences for these foods in later life.

Additives
In line with baby food regulations, none of our recipes contain artificial colourings, flavourings, added preservatives or sweeteners. All of our recipes are also ‘baby-grade’ to ensure the highest quality. ‘Baby-grade’ means that the raw materials are managed “from farm to factory” to ensure full traceability, with farms inspected and intermediate suppliers audited. We know exactly where our carrots have been grown and which orchard has supplied our apples. Unlike most food manufacturers we don’t buy from the open market - our ingredients are grown specifically for us so that we can demand and control quality standards far more stringently than those applied elsewhere in the food industry.

Cow & Gate Baby Balance Range
Cow & Gate Baby Balance range has been designed by our nutritionists to help parents provide a nutritionally balanced diet for their baby. This means that the range not only provides appropriate nutrition to meet the requirements of growing babies and toddlers, but also provides variety in tastes and progression in texture across all meal occasions, both of which play an important part in the weaning process.

Our extensive range of baby foods includes:

• Breakfast cereals
• Meals (in jars and ready-to-serve trays)
• Fruit and dairy desserts
• Snacks
• Drinks
• Pasta and sauces

Download dietary information on our Breakfasts – Baby Rice, Cereals and Jars

Download dietary information on our Meals – Jars and Little Steamed Meals

Download dietary information on our Desserts – Jars, 100% Fruit and Fruity Puddings

Download dietary information on our Drinks



If you require further information on the ranges then please call our Healthcare Professional Careline on 08457 623 624.