In an interview with "Krone"

Hipp CEO: “What kind of person could do such a thing?”

Company CEO Stefan Hipp (58)—he is the fourth generation to lead the family business—during an interview in the attic of the corporate headquarters in Bavaria.(Bild: Imre Antal)

Every child knows the advertising slogan “I stand behind this with my name.” But following the blackmailer’s poison attack on jars of baby food, the previously idyllic HiPP world has been shaken. Company CEO Stefan Hipp spoke with the “Krone” about safety guarantees, parents’ fears, faith in God (“It’ll all work out”), and the moment when everything changed.

Stefan Hipp is the fourth generation to lead the family-run business with more than 125 years of history. You can already sense that the company is a family on the way to the headquarters in the idyllic Upper Bavarian town of Pfaffenhofen. Many employees have small children of their own; our driver has a HiPP keychain on his car keys. In the entrance hall of the ecologically built, energy-self-sufficient headquarters—constructed with wood—stands an oversized glass jar. It symbolizes the rise—from humble beginnings with children’s rusks—to becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of organic baby food.

“We started with raw materials from my parents’ farm; now many farmers in the area are our suppliers,” the successful entrepreneur, who still works in the barn of his organic farm, assures us as he greets us. But since last Thursday, nothing has been the same. Ever since a blackmailer demanded two million euros in cryptocurrency and insidiously laced six jars of vegetable baby food in Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic with rat poison.

Stefan Hipp is waiting for us for the interview. You can sense the distress in the 58-year-old, who grew up in a deeply religious household with Christian values (“Faith in God helps especially in situations like this”).

“Krone”: Mr. Hipp, you are a father of three children yourself. Can you understand the fear parents are feeling?