HiPP stages explained

Two. Regulation (EU) 2016/127 sets out infant formula, which may be a baby's only food from birth, and follow-on formula, which is for a baby over six months who is also eating other things. Each has its own annex and its own composition.1

Everything else is a name. HiPP's PRE, 1, 2 and 3 sort its own products inside those two categories, and so do First Infant Milk and Follow On Milk in Britain.

Of the 47 packs this site records, 20 are infant formula, 19 are follow-on formula, 4 are milks for children over one, and 4 are foods for special medical purposes.1

Both mean infant formula, from birth. Every HiPP PRE and every HiPP 1, in the organic range, the goat range, the PUR range and the HA range, is made to the same annex and may be a baby's only food.1

Germany sells two of them because its Stage 1 and its PRE are genuinely different: PRE has lactose as its only carbohydrate, and Stage 1 adds a little starch.4 With two from-birth milks on one shelf, HiPP needed two names.

The Netherlands and Britain sell one each, so they did not. The Dutch Stage 1 has no starch, and the British First Infant Milk has no starch either; both fill the place PRE fills in Germany, under a plainer name.56

PRE is a German label, not a grade. A Dutch Stage 1 is not a step up from a German PRE, and a German Stage 1 is not a step up from either.

Two means follow-on formula, and every HiPP 2 in every market and every range is one: cow's milk, goat's milk and hydrolysed alike.14

Three is where the numbering frays. The German Stage 3 is labelled from the tenth month, the Dutch Stage 3 from ten months, the Dutch goat Stage 3 and the British Growing Up Milk from twelve.456 All four are still follow-on formula in law. There is no third category for them to be in.

Above that come the milks for children over one: Kindermilch in Germany, Junior in the Netherlands, Growing Up Milk in Britain. EU law sets no composition for a drink at that age at all, so these are neither infant nor follow-on formula.1

They do not map, because there is nothing to map onto. American rules set one nutrient specification for infant formula, a single table of minimum and maximum levels per 100 kilocalories, with no age tiers and no second category for older babies.3

So a European Stage 2 has no American counterpart, and an American parent reading "Stage 1" is reading a word from a different system. The NHS reaches the same place from the British side: first infant formula is the only formula a baby needs for the whole first year.2

No, and the one place a number does matter runs the other way. A first infant formula can stay a baby's main drink until one year, and the NHS says research shows switching to follow-on formula at six months has no benefits.2

What the numbers do carry is a floor rather than a ceiling. Follow-on formula should never be fed to a baby under six months, and the NHS warns that the labels look very similar to first infant formula, so the pack is worth reading rather than the shelf edge.2