 | |
| Industry | Food industry |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1 July 1932 |
| Headquarters | Sachseln, Switzerland |
Key people | Stefan Hipp, Sebastian Hipp (CEO) [1] |
| Revenue | 608,0 mil. Euro (2020) [2] |
Number of employees | 3200 (2023) [3] |
Hipp Holding is a Swiss manufacturer of baby food and personal care products for babies based in Sachseln. The German company headquarters are in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm in Upper Bavaria. This is also the origin and seat of the German main factory, which was founded in 1932.
In 1899, Joseph Hipp (1867–1926) started producing rusk flour in his bakery, which had been part of the gingerbread bakers that had existed in Pfaffenhofen for centuries, [4] which his son Georg Hipp (1905–1967) sold in Munich starting in 1921. Later, the company switched production mainly to "J. Hipp's children's rusk flour", but the gingerbread and wax-drawing workshops continued to operate. After the death of Joseph Hipp, Georg Hipp took over the production of the rusk flour and his mother Maria added a café to the business. In 1932 the business was split up, and his brother Hans Hipp took over the café, which along with the confectionery and gingerbread shop still exists today. [5]
Georg Hipp founded the company "Nährmittel Hipp" on 1 July 1932. That same year he began to produce baby food in a former hops hall on part of today's company premises. Because of problems with the National Socialists, production was moved to Munich. When the buildings were destroyed in an air raid in 1944, Hipp settled back in Pfaffenhofen. There the company developed into a leading company in the food industry. [6]
From the mid-1950s, Hipp was the first company in Germany to industrially produce baby food in cans, [7] but for hygienic reasons of the fruit and vegetable menus have been in jars since 1959/1960. [8]
In 1964, Georg's son Claus Hipp joined his father's business and he took over management in 1967. For a long time the management consisted of the three brothers Claus Hipp, Georg Johannes Hipp and Paulus Hipp. [9] Georg Johannes Hipp left in 2010, and over time other family members joined.
In 2016, Hipp took over the plant of the dairy industry company Herford GmbH & Co. KG (MIG) from the DMK subsidiary Humana GmbH in Herford. Milk powder and baby food are manufactured there. [10]
In 1999, the company's headquarters were relocated to Sachseln, Switzerland, where the Hipp family has been active since 1954 with bio-familia AG, which specializes in organic muesli. [11]
The history of the subsidiary Somalon is preceded by personal relationships between the couple who founded the company. The Swiss Anny Metzner and the German Georg Hipp met in the canton of Obwalden. The couple often made pilgrimages to holy Brother Klaus in the Flüeli-Ranft pilgrimage site above Sachseln. In Germany, the Hipp family was already successful with baby food. To strengthen Obwalden as a business location and to market baby food from Sachseln, they founded the Somalon company in 1954. The lawyer Caspar Arquint became the director. [12]
Personal contact with Edwin Bircher, the son of the muesli inventor Max Bircher-Benner, gave rise to the idea of producing ready-to-eat Birchermüesli in Sachseln. Bircher gave the Somalon company permission to call its product "Bio-Birchermüesli" and in 1959 it launched the first Birchermüesli under the brand name "familia". The organic Bircher muesli was successful and was exported to Germany, Austria, England, the Netherlands and the US within a short period of time. As a result, the company was renamed from Somalon to bio-familia in 1978. [13] As late as 1987, the foreign share was 70 percent, but it fell to 40 percent by 2008 as the company was growing. [14] Bio-familia AG is a founding member of the Bio Switzerland interest group (IG Bio), which was founded in 2015. [15] The products are produced both for the company's own brand and for the house brands of major distributors.
In June 2012, the company received the "Golden Cream Puff", a negative award for the "boldest advertising lie of 2012" for its instant fruit teas made from sugar granules. [16] Hipp advertised its instant fruit teas to small children from the age of 12 months. However, the granules of the tea contained 94 to 96% sugar, which means that a fruit tea mixed according to specifications contained around two grams of sugar per 100 milliliters. Foodwatch claims this contradicts Hipp's claim to offer "child-friendly" and "healthy" products. Nutrition experts recommend, that children should not be given any sweetened beverages, but drink water instead. [17] [18]
In November 2012, Hipp said it took these teas off the market [19] and since the end of 2012 simple tea bags with no added sugar have been on the market as a substitute product. In August 2013, the consumer organization Foodwatch complained that Hipp continued to sell similar products under the Bebivita brand – a full Hipp subsidiary. [20]
In October 2013, a sample of the ZDF consumer magazine "WISO" showed that genetically modified vegetables were processed in Hipp's organic baby food. This was found in almost a quarter of the Hipp samples that were examined. [21] Hipp announced that it would investigate the results of the investigation and intensify the product analyses. [22]
In February 2022, Hipp was accused of greenwashing in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit because the company did not describe itself as climate-neutral but even as climate-positive. However, this is done through climate compensation through the purchase of CO2 certificates, which exceed 10% of the company's CO2 emissions. [23]
In 2002, the company received the "World Prize for Sustainability" Energy Globe Award and in 2003/2004 the "German Environmental Reporting Award". [24]
The latest awards are: [24]
A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
Breakfast cereal is a category of food, including food products, made from processed cereal grains that are eaten as part of breakfast, or as a snack food, primarily in Western societies.
Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, M.D. was a Swiss physician and a pioneer nutritionist credited for popularizing muesli and raw food vegetarianism.
A biscuit, in many English-speaking countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa but not Canada or the US, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include biscotti, sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, and speculaas.
Muesli is a cold Swiss breakfast dish, the primary ingredient of which is rolled oats. Traditionally, it is set to soak overnight and eaten the next morning. Additional ingredients, such as grains, nuts, seeds, and fresh or dried fruits are sometimes added, along with milk or cream, a small amount of citrus juice, and honey to add sweetness. Yoghurt, other milk products, or milk substitutes are now commonly added to both homemade and commercially packaged muesli recipes.
Swiss cuisine is an ensemble of national, regional and local dishes, consisting of the ingredients, recipes and cooking techniques developed in Switzerland or assimilated from other cultures, particularly neighboring countries. The diversity and comprehensiveness of Swiss gastronomy reflects the linguistic, cultural and geographical diversity. The climate of Switzerland allows for a large variety of terroirs, and therefore a wide range of indigenous food, from simple cereals to refined products like cheese and wine.
A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.
A gingerbread house is a novelty confectionery shaped like a building that is made of cookie dough, cut and baked into appropriate components like walls and roofing. The usual base material is crisp gingerbread, hence the name. Another type of model-making with gingerbread uses a boiled dough that can be moulded like clay to form edible statuettes or other decorations. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations.
Christmas cookies or Christmas biscuits are traditionally sugar cookies or biscuits cut into various shapes related to Christmas.
Jörg Böhme is a German former footballer who played as midfielder, and who most recently was the manager of Energie Cottbus.
Kinder Bueno is a chocolate biscuit and wafer confection made by Italian confectionery maker Ferrero. Part of the Kinder Chocolate brand line, Kinder Bueno is a hazelnut-cream-filled wafer covered in milk chocolate and a dark chocolate drizzle.
Foodwatch is a European advocacy group that focuses on protecting consumer rights as they pertain to food quality. The organization was founded in October 2002 in Berlin by former Greenpeace executive director Thilo Bode. As of 2020, the organization is active in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Austria. Foodwatch International, while handled as a separate unit, is legally a part of the German foodwatch association.
Győri is a brand name for biscuit products and candies owned by the Győri Keksz Ltd., Hungary. In its early years the production took place in Győr with the help of only 50 professionals. In its most successful years, however, the company employed around 1000 people and offered 334 different goods.
Claire Loewenfeld, born Lewisohn in Tübingen, Germany was a nutritionist and herbalist who worked in England during and after the Second World War promoting the importance of good nutrition, most notably rosehips from Britain's hedgerows as a source of vitamin C. She studied at Maximilian Bircher-Benner's clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, and worked as a dietician at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London, where she developed a fruit and vegetable diet for the treatment of coeliac disease.
The Munich–Treuchtlingen railway, also known as the Altmühlbahn, is a railway line in the German state of Bavaria. As part of the new and upgraded Nuremberg–Ingolstadt–Munich line project, the Munich-Ingolstadt section is gradually being upgraded for a line speed of up to 200 km/h (120 mph).
Quala S.A. is a multi-national massive production enterprise that creates and distributes food, beverages, personal care products, ice-based desserts, and candies, among others. Its headquarters is located in Bogotá (Colombia) operating also in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. They sell a large amount of dairy products within Colombia.
Glaceau Smartwater is a brand of bottled water owned by Energy Brands, a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company. Introduced in 1996 as Ice Mountain Spring Water and Glaceau Mineral Water in the United States, it became known as Smart Water in 1998. By 2016, it was one of the top five most sold brands of bottled water in that country with sales worth nearly $830 million in 2017.
Claus Friedrich Wisser was a German businessman and philanthropist, a patron of music and the arts. He was head of the service company Wisag which he founded, and was chairman of its supervisory board since 2011, and honorary chairman of that board from 2022.
Sarah Wiener is a German-Austrian entrepreneur, television chef and politician who served as a member of the European Parliament for Austria from 2019 to 2024. She is a member of The Greens – The Green Alternative.
Nestlé Lanka is a Sri Lanka–based foods company located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Nestlé Lanka is a subsidiary of Nestlé, a Switzerland based company. Nestlé's products include baby food, medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea. The company was founded by the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in 1906 and incorporated under Nestlé Ceylon Company. Nestlé Lanka is Sri Lanka's largest food company by revenue, with Rs 36.355 billion in 2019. The whole company is controlled by the Nestlé Switzerland parent company. Nestlé S.A. owns over 90 per cent total shares. Nestlé Lanka PLC became the seventh most valuable brand in Sri Lanka worth approximately Rs 21 billion in 2017.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
