May 2, 2012 - The company places great emphasis on working in partnership ... the farmers make the link between their ap
G N I T F I L
on baby
food
Report by Fiona Wilcock
Independent Public Health Nutritionist
lIftIng
What is this report about? In Spring 2012 I was invited by Cow & Gate to write an independent report about exactly what goes into a jar of their baby food and what does not. As 41 million jars of Cow & Gate baby food are sold each year*, it matters enormously to Cow & Gate that the provenance and quality of their foods is unquestionable. This report details the journey of discovery I made, outlining the path that individual ingredients make from the farm through the factory to the end consumer – a vulnerable baby. Apart from my own research, the report uses the wealth of information I gleaned on the way. I met with farmers and producers in different countries, spoke to suppliers in Europe and South America, and had access to nutritionists, product developers and ingredient buyers in the UK and Europe.
* Nielsen MAT data w/e 2nd May 2012.
My background is as an independent public health nutritionist and food writer, and I have worked with the parenting press, with retailers and manufacturers, including the baby food industry, and written widely about pregnancy and infant nutrition. Having some inside knowledge, I felt it was particularly important to ask searching questions which might be tricky to answer, and could possibly reveal information Cow & Gate would not be comfortable with. As an independent consultant I wanted to establish the facts so that I could present a clear picture of the quality and provenance of Cow & Gate baby food. This report presents what I learnt, and I haven’t been asked to omit or fudge information that may not reflect well on Cow & Gate.
What I wanted to find out This report is about what I found when I lifted the lid on Cow & Gate baby food and how it is made. In it I reveal the impressive quality of Cow & Gate baby food today. I now know that even if I bought the highest quality ingredients, organic or not, I couldn’t match the degree of quality assurance that Cow & Gate baby foods have. My training in home economics and nutrition took place in the 1980s – at a time when the food industry was starting to churn out the first ready meals. Commercial baby foods of this era sometimes had a poor reputation, possibly deservedly, and I wanted to find out if this 1980s’ thinking about baby food still had any substance to it. When my own children were born in the 1990s, I did what I thought best: breastfeeding, then cooking from scratch, incorporating plenty of fruit and vegetables and lean meat, limiting the use of sugar and avoiding salt. In case you are wondering I did use some jars and packets of baby food but regarded them with a degree of suspicion. After all they may have contained preservatives or fillers I didn’t want. So now my children are in their teens, researching this report has given me the chance to see if baby food has moved with the times.
I wanted to find answers to some key questions because I, like all parents, think that babies deserve the best, particularly as they are so vulnerable:
W here do Cow & Gate foods come from and who produces them? W hat are baby grade ingredients and how do they compare to organic ones? What standards are used for animal welfare and sustainability? W hat actually goes into a jar of Cow & Gate baby food? H ow are the ingredients handled and processed, and are nutrients lost? H ow does Cow & Gate baby food compare to home cooked? I discovered the answers to these questions as I talked and met with suppliers and Cow & Gate employees. I’ve grouped the answers to these questions into sections:
• The sourcing story • Growing baby grade • Animal welfare and sustainability • The manufacturing process • Manufactured and homemade baby food • My conclusions
read on...
the sourcing story I learnt a lot about the philosophy of Cow & Gate while I was researching this report. The company places great emphasis on working in partnership with specialist farmers. This ensures ingredients are not only safe but are grown to rigorous standards making them ‘baby grade’ ingredients. To find how the ingredients are sourced I travelled to apple orchards in the Czech Republic and to Ireland to visit a beef farmer. I also met the head office team in Wiltshire and had many fascinating conversations with specialists who are based in Europe and beyond. The first of the visits I made was to two apple orchards, Sady Tuchoraz and Sady Bile Podoli, in the beautiful Czech Republic countryside. Both orchards were far from main roads and heavy industry and seeing deer in one and the evidence of wild pigs foraging in the other, did create an idyllic image. Here I met Pavel, the apple expert, who is part of the Supplier Quality Development team, specialists whose job it is to ensure the safety and quality of ingredients. A key part of Pavel’s role is to ensure that each ingredient can be traced back to where it was grown to guarantee its safety. Pavel was my guide around the orchard and the fruit processing factory, and his knowledge
Case Study: Pavel Pavel is responsible for ensuring that all apples meet the specifications for baby grade ingredients.
With a doctorate in plant protection and huge experience in the field, Pavel is well placed to help pass on this knowledge to each farmer. Every farmer – there are currently 13 – is taken to the apple processing plant to see how their apples are used. Pavel says: “This really helps the farmers make the link between their apples and the jar of apple purée it becomes. They understand, for example, why we insist that apples are stored in plastic boxes rather than the usual wooden ones, as they then realise how much damage a splinter of wood could do.”
of apples and agriculture is astounding. The apple farmers I met have well established relationships with Cow & Gate and, in fact, this is typical for all of their farmers and growers. Jan from Sady Bile Podoli has grown thousands of tonnes of Golden Delicious apples in the nine years he has worked with Pavel. Working in partnership with farmers is critical to getting the ingredient quality needed and Stephan, the specialist responsible for buying Cow & Gates’ vegetables, estimates that it takes “at least 18 months to learn how to become a baby food farmer”. In addition to the regulations which conventional good farming practice requires, farmers who want to supply Cow & Gate baby foods have to meet a host of other requirements and fully understand and commit to the philosophy of producing to baby grade standard. This requires dedication and long term commitment, as farming this way takes a good deal of effort over and above the norm. It also seems to attract a particular type of farmer as both Jan and John, the beef farmer, are very enthusiastic about working with Cow & Gate and seemed to have a genuine passion for what they are doing. This is indeed a partnership as for the farmer there is a degree of financial certainty because each year a contract for a specified amount of produce, from apples to carrots to beef, is agreed in advance. These agreements mean that Cow & Gate has an assured source of ingredients and the farmer doesn’t need to look for a buyer at harvest. This is hugely significant for Cow & Gate because they can’t just buy any old produce. The quality that is needed can only be guaranteed by working with specific farmers who will work to their strict parameters.
Case Study: John John is a beef farmer for Cow & Gate and lives in Co Tipperary in Ireland. John has around 250 cows on a farm of around 90 hectares. He has been providing Cow & Gate with prime beef for 10 years. What John feeds to his cattle is as important to him as what you feed your baby. The Emerald Isle is green for a reason, and the rain produces great grass, so John’s cows are well nourished on luscious ryegrass. In the winter when the stock is indoors, locally grown barley or other feed is used, and each purchase is documented so there is full traceability.
GROWING BABY GRADE INGREDIENTS The more I talked to farmers and specialists the more I began to understand the importance of controlling farming practices in producing baby grade ingredients. What are baby grade ingredients?
T op quality ingredients always grown and processed with babies’ needs in mind rown by farmers under strict guidance and G in partnership with specialists S pecially produced ingredients which you can’t buy in the shops Tested at multiple stages to make sure they are safe for babies to eat rown where the crop does best in suitable G soil and away from potential contaminants Ingredients with significantly lower pesticide residues than regular shop-bought ones ompletely traceable at any stage back to C where it came from
Baby grade ingredients are different from the fresh ingredients you can buy in the supermarket, including organic ingredients, and I spent a long time discussing this concept with Pavel, Stephan and the overall boss of the Supply Team, John. I was curious to understand why Cow & Gate had not gone down the organic route, as pesticide residues can obviously be a potential concern for non-organic baby foods. The company openly acknowledged that pesticides and fungicides can be used on their ingredients and Stephan went on to explain that the use of any chemicals is strictly controlled, many being banned altogether. I also learnt that ‘organic’ does not automatically mean no ‘nasties’, for example, there are no legal controls on nitrates, mycotoxins or heavy metals in supermarket organic ingredients. The maximum amount of pesticide residue legally permitted in baby foods as you would serve to a baby is 10 parts per billion, which is a very tiny amount. In fact Pavel explained that this is about the equivalent of a drop of water in TWO Olympic sized swimming pools. Cow & Gate enforce an additional level of control over
and above this by testing each individual ingredient as well as the finished product. This approach is intended to ensure that all finished baby foods are far below the legal maximum for babies. Pavel explained how this works with apples. Growing baby grade apples requires a strict adherence to protocols which Pavel sets with each farmer at the beginning of the season. He specifies which sprays are permitted, as well as the amount and timing of each spray. After the apple trees have blossomed and the fruit has set, some pesticides are not allowed at all and any spraying is only allowed with strict limits on the last treatment date. The orchards are carefully selected to avoid any cross contamination from any other neighbouring crops. Pavel tests not only the apples but also the leaves and bark for this. A farmer who grows apples for the supermarket would typically spray fungicides throughout the summer to achieve shiny, round, blemish free apples. However, the important thing about baby grade apples is that they are as nutritious and safe as possible, so it doesn’t matter if they occasionally look a bit wonky, have dimples caused by hail or the odd blemish.
Cow & Gate also use alternative methods of pest control when possible. In the apple orc hards Pavel drew my attention to what looked like brown a branch of each tree. These are twist ties around pheromone disrupters, emitting pheromones which con fuse the male coddling moth who is out for a bit of noo ky As a result he can’t find the fem in the orchard! ales, so no eggs are laid and the apples are pro tected from moth infestation. Clever! Early in the season the trees are also sprayed with rapeseed oil so that any eggs laid by spider mites or aphids will not hatch. Not only do farmers have to be on board with the company’s baby grade philosophy but the farms have to be in the right location too. Producing baby grade ingredients means choosing farms where the ingredients grow the best, away from heavy industry or motorways, and where the weather is reliable so that the minimum of chemical treatments need to be used. Sometimes being closer to the processing plant can be helpful, so in the case of apples, most of the growers are in the Czech Republic as not only are the climate and soil suitable, the apples don’t need to travel far for processing, thus reducing food miles. Growing in the right soil is very important because, for many crops, if it has high levels of naturally occurring heavy metals, nitrates or other contaminants then those crops can’t be used, however enthusiastic the farmer or ideal the location. This complete control over the ingredients from the choice of field, right along the supply chain and the testing en-route really impressed me – not just in terms of limiting the use of pesticides but also checking the soil for contamination and checking for potential contaminants in each batch of fruit or vegetables.
Bearing all this in mind, I can’t see how organic could be any better for babies. I also wondered about other ‘nasties’ which shouldn’t be found in baby food. One such group of substances is nitrates which need to be controlled as in high quantities they have the potential to lead to an unpleasant blood problem in babies. In baby foods the legal maximum for nitrates is 200 parts per million. Nitrates are not always controlled in conventionally or organically produced ingredients but must be controlled in baby foods. Cow & Gate control nitrates by testing the soil as well as the produce and the choice of farm is critical to ensuring the amount of nitrates are kept lower than the maximum. Stephan explained to me that many vegetables, especially spinach, courgettes, butternut squash and green beans “suck up nitrates like a sponge”, so they are only able to use certain farms with low nitrate soil. Baby grade beef meets similarly high specifications. Only the best quality cuts of the forequarter are used as these are tender and lean. Meeting John and spending
some time on his farm assured me of the great care which he takes over his animals. When the cattle are inside in winter they may be given silage or feeds, which are only bought from certified farmers. The cattle live as naturally as possible and antibiotics will only be used if the animal is sick. On my visit to Ireland I also met with Don, General Manager of the abattoir and butchers used by Cow & Gate, who talked me through the testing which takes place on all the beef before it leaves them. The beef must be tested to check that it is free from potentially damaging microbes, such as Salmonella or E. coli, as well as for the presence of substances such as veterinary residues. It is only when all the tests have come back clear and the meat is certified as safe, that the beef is released for use. This means there is no risk of contaminated meat in Cow & Gate foods.
Animal welfare Anna is another Cow & Gate specialist, a young woman with a vast knowledge of the issues surrounding the ethical sourcing of animal produce. I was keen to find out if the chickens were free range, assuming that this would be the best method. However, I quickly found out that you can’t control what a free range chicken wants to eat, and it will peck away at many things, including soil which may have high levels of contaminants in it. This is not only more likely to make the chicken sick but raises the risk of contaminants in the meat. So, chickens bred for Cow & Gate are kept in large barns with dry litter, where they have space to walk, sit, preen, stretch their wings and have a dust-bath. The Cow & Gate specification requires all farmers to use the UK Department of Farming and Rural Affairs guide to animal welfare. Anna also told me that Cow & Gate has an action plan in place to continue to improve animal welfare standards.
Sustainability I also talked with Anna about tuna and fish supplies and again, she was very up-front about the ethics and politics of fishing. I am aware that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) operates a certification scheme for sustainable fishing. The wild Alaskan salmon and Alaskan pollock used by Cow & Gate are both MSC approved. However, I found that tuna is a bit more complicated. I know that the method of tuna fishing determines its sustainability and Anna told me that currently a mix of pole and line skipjack tuna (more sustainable) and skipjack tuna caught in nets is used for their baby foods. She said that Cow & Gate has found it hard to find enough pole and line caught tuna that also meets their requirements for the lowest levels of contamination. Most tuna fish stocks contain levels of heavy metals like arsenic or mercury that make them unsuitable for baby food. The smaller skipjack tuna have the lowest levels of contamination which is why they are used for baby foods. Anna said Cow & Gate is working hard to move completely to pole and line caught tuna – but not at the expense of safety. Another honest answer with a really logical explanation.
Sustainability comprises many things including recycling, and a fascinating conversation with the man in charge of the supply of bananas to Cow & Gate provided me with a great example. Pedro has been responsible for all the bananas supplied to Cow & Gate for the last six years and is another great enthusiast for his work. Pedro described to me the banana growing region – El Oro in Ecuador where the conditions are perfect for growing bananas as the temperature is around 22°C most of the year and there is plenty of rain which bananas love. I was interested to learn that Cow & Gates’ control over the supply chain extends beyond the ingredients themselves. Pedro told me that no child labour is permitted on plantations that supply Cow & Gate, and that medical centres and schools are provided for the workers’ children.
The bananas Cow & Gate use are grown to a similarly high specification to their other fruits. They are, however, those which wouldn’t reach the supermarket because they may be too curled, too straight or have blemished skin. I thought this sounded a bit dubious but Pedro described how all these bananas, which otherwise would be thrown out, are hand peeled to reveal undamaged flesh underneath. These bananas are then puréed, packed and tested, as with any other Cow & Gate ingredient. But it was what happened to the banana peel which particularly interested me. These are collected and transported back to the farm where they are composted. This process, helped by worms and bacterial fermentation, provides a rich natural fertiliser which is used in the banana plantation to grow more bananas.
FROM FARM TO PLATE Here is a step by step guide to the journey a baby grade Cow & Gate apple makes from the farm to a baby’s plate and everything in between.
Apples peeled
Sieved and puréed
Filling and capping
Apples checked Pavel and farmer Apples stored
Washed and brushed
Apple purée heated Freshly rinsed jars, filled with hot purée
Mum buys Cooked & pasteurised for 30 mins
Labelling & dating
Baby enjoys apple purée
Lab tests and metal detector
Cooling Packing
Distribution to shops
Case Study: Jo Research & Recipe Development Manager Jo is a real expert at making baby food and with 25 years in the business, and three kids of her own, she knows a bit about what babies like! Over the years Jo has designed and developed many of your favourite baby meals and sees each one through from concept to jar. To start the process Jo cooks up a baby meal in the kitchen at work, making sure it not only tastes good but will meet the raft of legislation which covers baby foods. She then uses nutritional software to do a theoretic analysis of the meal to check it contains the right amount of nutrients for your baby. Jo also arranges for tasters to sample the food in a sensory testing laboratory, checking that it looks and tastes delicious too. Only when she is happy with the results of the tests can Jo begin to scale the recipe up to be made in the factory for your baby. Another Cow & Gate person passionate about her job, Jo knows the importance of ingredient quality as well as the nutritional, taste and texture requirements of baby food at different stages.
What goes into a jar of Cow & Gate baby food Once I’d discovered how Cow & Gate sourced their ingredients I was keen to find out how these were used to make foods for babies. I met with Jo, Research and Recipe Development Manager, in the Cow & Gate offices in Wiltshire. Just as I may have cooked my children’s food, Jo first creates recipes on a domestic scale, cooking in the kitchen, and using store cupboard or fridge ingredients. This is where I found that some of those myths about baby foods were thoroughly quashed. There are none of the modified starches or dubious sounding ingredients you might have suspected in the baby foods Jo makes, either in her kitchen or when scaled up in the factory. It is made from real food and from the best ingredients for babies. I asked Jo to talk me through what went into a jar of Tasty Cottage Pie, and I confess I was surprised at just how simple it was. You can see this on the next page. I know that parents are concerned about the use of preservatives, colours, flavourings or any other additives in baby foods. It was not uncommon to find these in some baby foods in the past so it is
not unreasonable to believe they may still be used. However, it was reassuring to discover that Cow & Gate uses none of these. Preservatives are not needed because the high cooking temperature is a preservation method in itself, destroying any potential organisms that could cause spoilage. So an unopened jar keeps at room temperature without the need for any preservatives. This high temperature process means that foods have a longer shelf life than freshly made baby food which quickly goes off, even if refrigerated. Salt is an ingredient which is tightly regulated in baby food, and no salt is added to any Cow & Gate baby food. I know it can creep in through ingredients like stock, but Cow & Gate nutritionist Beth, assured me that no stocks are used. “Herbs and cooking water are included in some recipes but our internal nutrition standards prohibit the addition of salt or any taste enhancers”. I wondered how cheese, which is inherently salty, can be used and was interested to discover that their cheese suppliers have to comply with salt guidelines too and, of course, if you use a stronger tasting cheese you need less of it, also reducing salt levels.
When babies start eating solid foods, they have no experience of anything other than milk and have an innate preference for sweet things. However this doesn’t mean sugar needs to be added to foods and Cow & Gate has its own nutrition standards prohibiting the use of sugar in savoury foods and limiting it in desserts. Some of the desserts are made using regular fruit juice but not concentrated fruit juice which is really another way of adding sugar. Beth explained that already the majority of the desserts contain no added sugar and that they are working on reducing or removing sugar in the remaining recipes. The Taste of Apple I saw being made in the Czech Republic contains 100% apple and is usually made from Golden Delicious because of its natural sweetness, so no sugar needs to be added. Interestingly other European markets prefer sweeter fruit purées, so if you are travelling abroad you may find it harder to buy purées with no added sugar.
Carefully grown baby grade ingredients
What goes into Jo’s tasty cottage pie...
Lean beef is minc ed and pressure -cooked with water so it is rea lly tender. It has already been inspected to ma ke sure there are no bits of gristle or bone, and it is passed through sieves to double check.
Fresh carrots an d potatoes are ins pected, washed and then peeled using steam. Th ey are inspected again and diced into 1cm cubes. Peas and beans are tipped throu gh a grid to make sure there are no pieces of husk lef t, and are inspected again .
Lean meat is used to cut out saturated fat, but your baby needs some fat so rapeseed oil is added
The safety button shows you if the jar is damaged or the seal has gone
The potatoes, ca rrots and other vegetables are blanched for a few minutes to softe n them and then minced. The beef and ve getables are co mbined, some dried parsley ad ded and the whole lot inspected. Rapeseed oil is added, then wh eat starch is used to thicken as yo u might add flour at home. What is now tas ty cottage pie is he ated and filled into freshly rinse d jars and inspe cted. Caps are pressed on and then the jar goes into a pressurised cook er called a retort for an hour long cooking cycle tha t reaches 125°C . The jars are rap idly cooled then labelled before being inspected again. Samples are sent to the lab for analysis, befor e the batch can be packed and sent to the shop s.
There’s a lot of inspection to make sure nothing goes wrong, including metal detectors
One hour cooking process, with a peak temperature of 1250C
125°C
1 hour
What about homemade? I’ve always believed that to encourage healthy varied eating in childhood, babies should be exposed to a wide range of tastes and textures particularly in their first year.
Cow & Gate works hard to minimise losses, freezing ingredients such as peas as soon as possible after picking, and processing apples as soon as they come out of an ultra low oxygen store (this prevents over-ripening). This could mean that the ingredients Cow & Gate uses could contain more vitamin C than the ones I buy at the market or supermarket. Mine may also sit in my fruit bowl or languish in the fridge for a few days before I cook them, purée them, allow them to cool, and then freeze them. So, I do wonder if there is much difference between the two. Without laboratory tests to do analyses I have to leave this conundrum unanswered.
Foods can obviously come in different forms; purées, mashes, foods with lumps and, of course, finger foods. Babies usually progress through these textural stages so that they can begin to eat family meals. The UK government policy is that by the age of one, babies should be eating family meals, a splendid goal. However this makes the assumption that we adults are eating healthy foods which are appropriate for babies and toddlers. Sadly, often that is not the case and being able to blitz a homemade chicken and carrot stew and mashed potato is lovely but were both made without the addition of any salt or stocks, or salted spreads or butter? If not, then it is possible that homemade is not always best. One area I haven’t really mentioned is the nutritional losses that can occur in food processing. Cow & Gate, like other baby food manufacturers, don’t tend to specify on the label which vitamins or minerals are present, although it is legal to add some back in to compensate for any processing losses. High temperatures can cause considerable losses to vitamin C in particular and I discussed this with Jo.
I’m told an enquiry the Cow & Gate careline sometimes deals with is when a parent feels that the food is less tasty than they expect. Jo had described the Sensory Panels she runs where the tasters have to be trained to re-educate their palates.
Jo has done a great deal of work over her career in minimising vitamin C loss in processing and storage and told me that her research had indicated that foods in jars tend to lose less vitamin C than pouches or pots. I also wondered if homemade foods would contain more vitamin C than a jar which has been heated to a high temperature. It probably depends on the food but
It is sometimes easy to forget that we have an adult palate and have grown used to food to which we’ve added salt, sugar or flavoured sauces. One or two of the adult tasters working with Jo have talked of their reduced tolerance for salt and sugar in their own diet as a result of testing baby foods – a great, though unintended, testament to Jo’s work.
CONCLUSION I found the story of how Cow & Gate sources foods fascinating and I have learnt a good deal more than I expected. I had many discussions with experts who are committed to finding the right farmers for each ingredient. Farmers who are willing to take on board the additional stipulations of working with Cow & Gate. These specialists and producers appeared to me to have great understanding of all aspects of the supply chain, from the methods they adopt on the farm through to the people for whom the products are intended – babies. I’ve been taken aback by the conviction and passion of the farmers who are part of the Cow & Gate team. There was a real recognition that babies are vulnerable and need special measures to protect them. The ingredients are indeed baby grade and there is a great pride in being a producer of these high quality foods.
In my opinion they are certainly not inferior to organic foods and could even in some instances be better. In addition to my discussions with specialists and Cow & Gate employees, being able to see for myself a beef farm, apple orchards, as well as one of the factories provided me with a valuable insight into how baby foods are made. I’ve also found out that there are no nasty surprises with these foods; there is nothing added which you wouldn’t want a baby to have.
lIftIng My thinking, which was probably a bit out-dated, was really challenged by this investigation.
I now know that even if I bought the highest quality ingredients, organic or not I couldn’t match the degree of quality assurance that Cow & Gate baby foods have. I particularly liked the example Stephan used of a courgette. “It is impossible to buy one on the market that has so few contaminants, especially from nitrates” he explained. “What if I grow my own?” I mused. “Do you know if the soil on your vegetable patch contains heavy metals, or what pesticides may have been used in the past?” Stephan asked. No I don’t… there’s a thought…
So, I do believe there is a role for foods made specially for babies and Cow & Gate has demonstrated this to me. For parents, this should provide the confidence that every possible care has been taken over the choice and quality of ingredients and that each jar is not just safe to eat, but is made from delicious real food! Many thanks to everyone who helped me on my journey with Cow & Gate, I hope you enjoy the report.
Fiona Wilcock
About Cow & Gate Cow & Gate has been feeding babies in the UK for over one hundred years. Part of the Danone Group, Cow & Gate is the number one baby feeding brand in the UK and the company produces a wide range of foods for babies and toddlers.
The many specialists and experts who are involved in making Cow & Gate baby foods are passionate about ensuring that quality, safety and great nutrition are at the heart of everything they do. Parents can find out more at www.cowandgate.co.uk or visit www.danone.co.uk for more details.
Registered Address – Cow & Gate, Newmarket House, Newmarket Avenue, White Horse Business Park, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 0XQ. Published May 2012.
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