About us

At COW&GATE , we have almost 100 years of experience in making safe and wholesome milks and foods for generations of babies.

We want your baby to have the best. Which is why we grow food specifically for babies. Our fields and orchards are full of home-grown ingredients that we like to call ‘baby-grade’. We test the soil, bark and even the leaves on the trees as our fruits and vegetables grow, then carefully wash and spot-check them before use.

As you can probably guess, we're very, very careful to make sure our products meet all the latest safety and quality standards. But that’s not enough for us. To ensure that we keep up with the latest scientific developments, we usually set our own internal standards even higher. And we’re always working to improve every single recipe.

Meeting your baby's nutritional needs

All babies, including yours, have unique nutritional requirements, and they need foods that are just right for them. Our expert team of scientists, dietitians and nutritionists ensure our baby milks and foods have the right balance of nutrients and ingredients for every stage of your baby's growth.

Thanks to close links with the medical community, our highly skilled team are able to ensure they’re always at the forefront of research and development into infant nutrition.

Protecting your baby and the environment

We control the way our ingredients are grown and produced, making sure all our suppliers conform to our strict environmental guidelines.

We meet legal requirements on pesticides and herbicides. And we've been working to produce more environmentally friendly packaging for our products. A few years ago we stopped packaging our milks in tin cans. And we always use recycled materials wherever we can.

We also make sure our factories meet all national environmental regulations on waste emissions and the use of energy and water. We have plans in place in all our factories to make sure that we minimise the environmental impact of everything that we produce.

Breastfeeding is the 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. And we also believe COW&GATE has a role to play in education.

Our work to support the educational needs of healthcare professionals is very important to us, which is why 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.

And we're proud of the service we offer to parents and carers in answering any questions you may have about our products, our policies and infant feeding in general.

Company History

COW&GATE started in 1711 as a small grocery shop in Guildford at Number 20 High Street, owned by the Gates family. In 1887, the two brothers Charles and Leonard Gates decided to expand into the dairy trade, and opened up a new business called The West Surrey Central Dairy.

To ensure supplies of the best quality milk, they built their own creameries in the West of England, and also in Ireland.

The brothers’ best-selling product was fresh cream. This was sold in distinctive little brown jugs, with a label showing a cow looking through a gate. Among their customers were members of the Royal family, including Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York. The label became famous, and it soon became known as 'COW&GATE ' cream.

The success of their cream business gave the Gates brothers a problem - huge quantities of leftover skimmed milk. In 1900, there was no public demand for low fat milks. So they bought the latest drying equipment from America, and began selling milk powder to the bakery and catering trade for making puddings, using the same label of the cow looking through the gate.

In 1904, they received a bulk order for milk powder from the Medical Officer of Health in Leicester, Dr. Killick Millard, 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. And with 15% of infants in Leicester failing to reach their first birthday at the turn of the century, Dr. Millard hoped to improve their chances.

After conducting trials with COW&GATE milk powder in Leciester, he was pleased to report similar improvements. He published the results in medical journals and soon demand for the new baby food came from doctors and hospitals all over the country. That first link with the medical profession would eventually turn the West Surrey Central Dairy into COW&GATE , the babyfeeding company.

That first link with the medical profession eventually transformed the West Surrey Central Dairy into COW&GATE , the baby feeding company.

The first advert for COW&GATE appeared in 1908. And by 1920, the COW&GATE brand was so strongly associated with baby feeding that it was adopted as the company name! That same year, we published the first COW&GATE Baby Book to help doctors and midwives pass on the latest information and advice on feeding babies to new mothers.

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 practitioner
In 1959, COW&GATE joined up with United Dairies to form Unigate, one of the leading UK dairy companies. In 1976 the company moved its headquarters from Guildford to Trowbridge, in Wiltshire. Today, COW&GATE is part of Danone - number one in the global market for fresh dairy products.