Boycott Nestle

[aloha]

I don't know if anyone else heard the Today programme? Nestle is demanding £6million in compensation from Ethiopia, one of the poorest nations on earth which is facing catastrophic famine. Children are already dying because they have no food. Nestle has been offered over £1million, but is refusing to settle, even thought the company knows what the consequences may be. I thought this might be of interest to anyone who has read about the famine or contributed to famine relief. Personally, I didn't donate to have a greedy, immoral multinational snatch the food from starving children's mouths. Nestle already promote artificial feeding in the third world, contrary to the World Health Organisation's code of marketing. Where drinking water is unsafe, bottle fed babies are up to 25 times more likely to die from diarrhoea. So Nestle profits while babies die. Boycotting this disgusting company means more than never buying Nescafe again (though it's a very good start as it is their flagship product) but also covers many products including Cheerios and Shredded Wheat, Perrier Water, Kit Kats , Yorkie, Felix catfood as well as L'Oreal, Lancome, Garnier, Maybelline and Helena Rubenstein. For more information & a list of Nestle products, go to www.babymilkaction.org.

[addle]

hear hear

[Marina]

I heard this too Aloha and it made me very, very angry. Thanks for the link. V dismayed to hear it includes Lancome, had completely forgotten its holdings now extend beyond foodstuffs.

[bells2]

I heard it too and have to say I was absolutely stunned by it. Their net profit last year was US$4.77bn!!!!

[WideWebWitch]

Completely agree aloha. For anyone who hasn't got time to go to the site, here's a list of main Nestle products:

Coffee - Nescafé including:
Alta Rica
Black Gold
Blend 37
Cap Colombie
Cappuccino
Decaff
Expresso
Fine Blend
Gold Blend
Kenjara
Nes
Organic


Dairy products
Carnation
Chambourcy
Coffee-Mate
Extreme Viennois
Fussells
Ideal
LC1
Simply Double
Tip-Top

Confectionery & snacks
Aero
After Eights
Animal Bar
Baci Chocolate
Black Magic
Blue Riband
Breakaway
Caramac
Chocolate Cuisine
Dairy Box
Dairy Crunch
Drifter
Fab
Fox's Glacier Mints
Fruit Pastilles
Henri Nestlé Collection
Jellytots
Kit Kat
Kit Kat Chunky
Lion Bar
Lyons Maid Ice Cream
Matchmakers
Maxibon
Milky Bar
Munchies
Polo
Quality Street
Rolo
Rowntrees Fruit Gums
Smarties
Toffee Crisp
Toffo
Tooty Frooties
Walnut Whip
Willy Wonka
Yorkie

Contact lens care
Alcon
Seasonings
Dufrais
Maggi
Sarsons

Mineral water
Ashbourne
Buxton
Contrexéville
Perrier
Vittel

Other drinks
Build-up
Libby's juices
Milo
Nesquik
Nestea
Um Bongo

Processed meals
Bonne Cuisine
Buitoni pasta & canned foods
Crosse & Blackwell
Lean Cuisine
Rowntrees Jellies
Waistline Spreads & Pickles
Branston Pickle
Gales honey
Sun-Pat
Tartex vegetable patés in tubes

Cereals
Cinnamon Grahams
Cheerios
Coco
Shreddies
Fibre 1
Force
Frosted Shreddies
Golden Grahams
Golden Nuggets
Honey Nut Cheerios
Shredded Wheat including: Bitesize, Fruitful, Honey Nut
Shreddies

Cosmetics
Biotherm
Cosmence
Lancome
L'Oreal
Maybelline
Metamorphosis
Plénitude

Pet Foods
Arthur's
Felix
Friskies
Go-Cat
Go-dog
Spiller's
Winalot

I'm going to write as suggested on that page too.

[Tinker]

Oh my God!!! How can I live without Um Bongo and Tip Top?????

[bossykate]

hear, hear. no more shreddies in our house. the b***ds.

[bossykate]

eek! lancome?? well, so be it!

[WideWebWitch]

bk, thought the same about Maybelline...Ah well, sure someone else does good mascara

[bossykate]

the other mascara i use is l'oreal, so that's no good either!

[prufrock]

I've been boycotting Nestle for years but this just takes the p*. Having said that, so does the Etheopian government, and Nestle do have a sort of point in that if the govt don't behave "legally" then foriegn companies are not going to invest.
Ideal solution would be for Nestle to force the govt to pay (after all they would still have made a profit on the deal) and then donate the payment to one of the charities that will make sure it gets to the Etheopian people rather than adding to the palaces in Addis Abbaba

[slug]

The sluglet will revolt!! No Kit Kat!

[aloha]

Trouble is Prufrock, they sure as hell won't donate it, except in nice big payouts to their shareholders and executives. Also it wasn't their company in Ethiopia that was nationalised, it was a tiny part of a company they subsequently bought - Nestle lost nothing whatsoever but just sees a way of clawing even more cash from a famine stricken country! Also, it was the previous military regime in Ethiopia that nationalised the company, not the present government (which hasn't behaved illegally, so they wouldn't be getting justice at all. The Ethiopian gvt has offered half the amount the company was worth in 1975 (when it was nationalised) plus interest - however - Nestle want the value at 1975 exchange rates, plus interest, which sends costs soaring. Plus the Ethiopian gvt has asked the World Bank to negotiate but Nestle won't take part. The whole thing stinks. I truly and honestly don't know how the bastards sleep at night, I really don't. I think in this case we have to think of the children with the distended bellies and little stick arms and legs who have, quite literally, nothing, and of the despair and anguish of their mothers. What's giving up buying a new mascara or a chocolate bar compared to that? I have felt so emotional about this issue all morning.

[janh]

aloha, this is all news to me, why are Nestle demanding the money, what is the govt. supposed to have done (or not done)?

[Croppy]

Take your point Aloha but I think what Prufrock is getting at that as in virtually every other case, the Ethiopian famine is largely as a result of the behaviour of their own government.

[tigermoth]

Goodness I feel so ingnorant - I knew Nesle was bad but not that bad. Thanks Aloha for starting this thread, and thanks www for that list. Both your contributions make sobering reading. Naive question, but is there no way that the world bank override nestle's wishes and investigate this?

Will now follow the nestle news much more closely and will try and memorise that list - it had me running to the utility room to check Nestle is not the maker of Comfort fabric conditioner - not a banned substance, phew.

[Enid]

tinker

[Croppy]

Didn't mean to sound unsympathetic just that in order to find a long term solution to preventing these dreadful famines, the government needs to get its act together, stop all the corruption and most importantly stop diverting aid to other purposes, notably the build up of the armed forces during and since the border war with Eritrea. Nestle's action is trying to force the government to abide by international law which if they don't do, they can kiss goodbye to any future foreign investment. But, Nestle should obviously pledge the proceeds to direct famine relief themselves.

[aloha]

My point was that it's not 'their' government any more. The Soviet-backed regime that privatised the company was deposed in 1991. The replacement government has been far more liberal, commericially-minded etc. It is a totally different regime. Also, I do not believe that unless Nestle get their $6million, foreign investment will collapse. The nationalisation they want compensation for happened in 1975 - that's nearly 30 years ago! They have been offered a generous and equitable settlement but refuse to accept it, while Ethiopians die. Yes, the war with Eritrea is stupid and wrong but what I understand is that the key causes of famine have been near unprecedented droughts that have caused massive crop failures plus the costs of servicing foreign debt of around $10,000m. Anyway, whatever the history of this famine, children are dying every day of starvation right now. This cannot be a good time to start demanding millions of dollars to add to their profits. Also, Nestle has proven to be an immoral company whose 'investment in' Africa could also be more accurately seen as 'exploitation of'. It already has blood on its hands. This is just another example of how it operates.

[aloha]

janh - back in 1975, the Soviet-backed Ethiopian gvmt nationalised certain companies to resell them to raise money. This was clearly wrong and illegal. However, in 1991, the Ethiopian goverment was overthrown and a new, totally different regime came in committed to liberalisation and free trade. Nestle had bought the parent company of one of the companies that was nationalised. It looked into it and saw that it could claim back the value of the company from the new Ethiopian government, which had nothing to do with the privatisations. Remember, Nestle did not lose one of its own companies or lose any money. The 'compensation' it is seeking will be pure unearned profit, direct from one of the poorest nations on earth, now suffering a catastrophic famine which is killing babies. Babies just like ours, only unlucky enough to have been born in Ethiopia today. It has refused to compromise on the amount but is pressing for much more than the company was worth in 1975. This is, IMO, immoral bordering on evil.

[Croppy]

Don't get me wrong Aloha, I wholeheartedly agree with you that their demands are wrong. But the present government has not learned the lessons from previous famines and while they have suffered terrible droughts, this did not need to lead to mass starvation. I just get so depressed that governments like Ethiopia line their own pockets and specd money on weapons rather than ensuring their own populations will be kept alive. The situation in countries like Zimbabwe which are rich in natural resources and where famine is spreading makes me weep.

[aloha]

And, funnily enough I agree with you too! I just can't bear that a big Western multinational can be so greedy. And to be fair, the new Ethiopian regime is a far cry from the Menghisto regime. When you inherit debt like that and a poor and chaotic country, drought can be the appalling final straw which plunges a nation into famine. War doesnt' help one bit, but even without a war I think this famine would have happened. And of course, the Ethiopian people are not its leaders - they just suffer.

[aloha]

BTW the World Bank think Ethiopia's offer is enough, and Oxfam strongly condemns Nestle. Also! Another reason why Ethiopia is in such a state is that coffee is its main export and coffee prices have recently dropped by 70%. Coffee companies are notoriously rapacious and it is really worth buying Fairtrade coffee. I buy it at the supermarket and tell ds 'This is to help the poor children'. He has no idea what I'm on about, of course

[RosieT]

I'm appalled by Nestle. Going to print out that list of products to avoid and stick it on the noticeboard at work.

[bells2]

Have just been looking at the Nestle website. Here is what they say about formula in the developing world:

Does Nestle's promote Infant Formula to mothers in developing countries?
In order to reach developing world mothers who do need infant formula, while not promoting it to those who do not, Nestlé leaves the recommendation of appropriate breast milk substitutes to health professionals and for almost 20 years has stopped all promotion of infant formula to the public. This commitment to a ban on promotional activities means: no advertising, no store promotions, no price incentives, no ?milk nurses? and no educational materials mentioning infant formula.

What does Nestle do to promote breast-feeding?
Nestlé also supports the promotion of breastfeeding. A little-known fact is that Nestle is one of the largest private producers of breastfeeding promotional material in the world. Nestlé is also the largest private distributor of the WHO Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes in the world, having distributed tens of thousand of copies to educate both our staff and the health systems we deal with.

Does WHO say that 1.5 million babies die annually because of bottle-feeding?
One statistic - that the lives of 1.5 million babies could be saved if exclusive breastfeeding was successfully promoted - is often distorted to suggest the fault lies with infant formula marketing. This statistic is often attributed to the World Health Organisation. In fact, the WHO has clarified that it has never made such a statement either in relation to infant formula or to bottle feeding in general.
?... WHO has made no statement quantifying the impact on either morbidity or mortality of infants being fed on bona fide infant formula, i.e. breast-milk substitutes manufactured in accordance with the relevant standards of the Codex Alimentarius.
In contrast, WHO has estimated that [this] number of infant deaths... that could be averted annually through effective breast-feeding promotion, and this irrespective of the breast-milk substitutes used to feed them or, for that matter, the feeding utensils employed for this purpose".
(WHO, 19 November 1992)

How are most babies fed in the developing world?
The use of traditional foods by breastfeeding mothers at too early an age is the most prevalent problem in infant feeding, as the overwhelming majority of babies in Africa and elsewhere are both breastfed and given these traditional foods (or plain water) from the first months of life. This is the primary reason why mothers need to understand that exclusive breastfeeding until about 6 months, and introducing other foods no earlier than 4 months, is so important.

The fact that more infant formula is sold in Belgium, which has a population of 10 million, than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, covering a population of over 650 million, helps puts the sale and use of this product in developing countries into context. Even within sub-Saharan Africa, the sale of infant formula is highly concentrated in more affluent urban areas, including the approximately 10 million South Africans who have a middle or upper class standard of living. The sale of infant formula has been low in Africa and is not growing, primarily because the ability to purchase it is low, and the majority of women resort to the traditional foods listed above to supplement or substitute breast-milk.

Does anyone know if the company has been challenged on any of the above?. I find it difficult to know who to believe.