To think that Infant Formula should be a luxury?

[FridayThirteenth]

Actually I don't, but this is the warning that dairy producer Arla has given in a speech to LSE about the possible consequences of customs barriers and restriction of labour after Brexit (even in a soft brexit scenario):

www.foodbev.com/news/arla-warns-of-higher-costs-for-uk-consumers-after-brexit/

*“Our dependence on imported dairy products means that disruption to the supply chain will have a big impact.

“Most likely we would see shortages of products and a sharp rise in prices, turning every day staples, like butter, yoghurts, cheese and infant formula, into occasional luxuries. Speciality cheeses, where there are currently limited options for production, may become very scarce.

“It is important to be clear about this: Brexit might bring opportunities to expand the UK industry in the long term, but in the short and medium term we cannot just switch milk production on and off.

“Increasing the UK’s milk pool and building the infrastructure for us to be self-sufficient in dairy will take years.”*

So what are the consequences of this given the low breastfeeding rates in the UK generally? Would there be a higher uptake of breastfeeding? I know personally, despite being a committed breastfeeder, my DD probably wouldn't be alive without formula due to latch refusal and an inability to express enough. So higher breastfeeding rates combined with infant mortality?

Will we just have to suck up even more expensive formula?

Or perhaps we could go down my grandmothers route in the 60s when formula was prohibitively expensive and feed babies condensed milk (assuming that will be more available due to shelf life).

Genuinely interested in views here as haven't heard of this as a potential consequence. Given the recent votes in the commons making the possibility of a 'no deal' much more likely, how worried should we be?

Utter bunkem designed to twitch the already twitchy breastfeeding brigade. All those stupid formula feeders probably voted for Brexit. Because according to you people, they are both the same types of unenlightened commoners. F off.

With regards to formula, one of the reasons you might need to do it is because you have to go back to work and can't express enough to keep up. (My situation). I wanted to breast feed, did for as long as I could, but had to switch. Although the switch to formula was only part time and I wanted to do a combination of bf and ff, in fact it all got so out of kilter bf came to an end.
So we could possibly also have a situation where more mothers have to work as all household costs rise, which means more mothers opt to ff as they are simply not home to bf. The whole situation could see a rise in bf due to formula costs. But it could also see a rise in ff and therefore even more financial pressure on households because the decision to ff is taken into account with lots of factors, not just costs.

I thought there were already limits of how much formula you can buy in one go? Or is that just at my local supermarket?

I'm sure this is because people were selling it on Ebay at vastly inflated prices to the Far East. Nothing to do with formula not being available in the UK.

Most people already want to breastfeed. Formula being hard to get hold of or more expensive won't change that, it will just make people more miserable/push people further into poverty.

Better BF support and training is needed but that's nothing to do with the formula industry or the dairy industry.

You don't like the fact that people call leave voters stupid. But then there are 2 pages of debate here and your contribution is F off? People on thread have mostly not stereotyped anyone but put forward different arguments and points of view. If you want people to respect your choice then explain it. Obviously you don't have to, but if you don't and only swear, then people will draw their own conclusions and you can't comp,a in if you don't like those conclusions.

If this happens I would hope that instead of rationing by price and making infant formula an unaffordable luxury, there would instead be a needs-based rationing whereby if the supply was only enough for fully feeding x% of infants, health visitors could ensure that those who really needed it (eg physical or medical reason) could get it at an affordable price with tokens.

No one has drawn a correlation between formula feeding and voting Leave! Who has called anyone an ‘unenlightened commoner’ on this thread?

I voted Remain and I breastfed my children. But I am extremely concerned that Brexit will limit the supply of formula. I’m worried because I don’t want struggling families to be ruined completely. I’m worried because I don’t want babies to suffer from lack of essential nutrition. Babies’ lives and their health depends on formula. I’m not looking down on formula feeders; I’m really worried about what Brexit may mean for them. However they voted!

JJS don't be daft! It's Arla who have issued this report. They are not anti formula feeding -why on earth would they be, dairy is their business.

I think what we will see is people having to invent a dairy intolerance in their babies so they can get their formula on prescription. A GP I know has put a couple of babies that she strongly suspected were unsettled because the parents were having to water down the formula onto prescription formula and documented a cows milk protein intolerance in the notes. She said at least this way the baby is getting fed enough, and that little bit of money the family are now saving might allow the rest of them to eat too.
I think that the people saying it's scaremongering probably don't realise just how precarious some peoples' financial situation is.

Whilst trade is gobal, formula availability is not. Our forumala (C&G, SMA, aptamil come from European factories. Yes, we could get formula from elsewhere, BUT is could make babies ill due to sudden change in formula, it isn't made to the same standards as ours, some (such as from China) has the potential to be downright dangerous! I wouldn't want to be feeding my child formula with packaging I didn't understand, from an unknown source or a country whose regulations I was concerned about.

Eh JJS, wtf are you on about?

I formula fed 2 of my children, and breastfed one....although ended up on formula, and follow on milk and now has nutritional supplement drinks (dairy based, produced by one of the European formula manufacturers). I voted remain.

We are 'lucky' in that the drinks are prescription, but the cost will be passed onto the NHS.

Could the people posting about how this is "utter bunkum" and "scaremongering", and accusing remainers of acting like "the sky is falling", please explain what they think will happen to formula supplies if we leave the EU with no deal? I'm getting sick of Brexiteers taking no responsibility for their actions and sneering at the remainers who are actually trying to prepare for the future.

bump

We were entirely self sufficient in diary until the EU undercut our own dairy farmers and it was then cheaper to import EU milk. Thankfully a majority of dairy farms that were loss making were just left empty or converted in to other types of farming or production.

The infrastructure is still there. I imagine dairy farmers in the UK will be glad for the opportunity for growth again and being able to charge a fair price for their milk.

Our local milkman has already had to take on 6 new staff just because people want glass bottles again instead of plastic from the supermarket. He rightly believes this will be a big boom for the industry again and for UK farmers.

As for formula... do you honestly think those companies are stupid enough not to just start manufacturing in the UK if it's cheaper than importing it and taxes and whatever for them? The UK is one of the biggest markets for formula. Don't be fucking soft.

AlphaBravo it takes time to organise factories, to grow farms and get equipment up to use, to get the animals, for them to get pregnant and birth.

How do you think we will cope until then? Which will be a minimum of 12 months.

No one here is saying we won't be able to do it long term, but in march, when we leave, what will do when current sticks run out?

Imchlibob - I believe rationing is an option industry insiders are already saying may need to be considered. No idea how that would work for formula, which was rationed during WWII also, can't find details of how much was allowed per child, if you could get more for hungrier babies etc.

It is very worrying. Regardless of how people voted I don't think anyone wants babies going hungry, becoming sick due to this.

I bf until approx 9 months when my milk dried and I had to use formula.

I'm supportive of bf generally/ideologically as the benefits do outweigh ff slightly, but mothers have a variety of reasons they may choose to ff and that's their choice. Plus for some mothers & some babies bf isn't possible or is medically ill advised.

We don't have great stores of donated breast milk either.

I too suspect that unfortunately what's likely to happen is watering down of formula, earlier weaning and other unhealthy practices which the mother may not know is unhealthy.

How do you think we will cope until then?

Why, we'll all drink unicorn milk, of course.

This seems to be a common thread running through answers that dismiss the warnings coming out about possible no deal.

"Why of course we'll do this this and this and return to our former glory"

No thought given to the process or time to actually get to that place.

What will be the consequence of short term (eg 12 months) of chaos? Particularly where something like baby formula is involved?

It's no use brushing it away as we need to know what the plan is to cope whilst we are building the infrastructure necessary to cope in the event of no deal.

I'm interested in the advice and guidelines in the event of no deal due to be published by the government.

At least we'll have some idea of whether there is any contingency planning or if the advice will be 'stock up now while you can'

Infant formula is a con and unnecessary. If baby formula is or would be affected, that would be significant. They are specifying toddler formula- which no kid needs.

SD1978 why do you think infant formula won't be affected? It's imported too.

The dairy supply chain is already wobbly. Invetitable given th EU obsession with taking thriving industries and dragging them down a few notches for that inefficient industries using outdated technologies can compete. The UK government should have tought about this before allowing the EU to get so involved in donestic economics.

I would like us to have over 90% breastfeeding rates and we hav a long way to go so if this helps - great.

But Xenia it's unlikely to help. It more likely to cause illness and poverty than improve breastfeeding rates. Especially short term.

Think about how long planning applications take for even a single house. Imagine manufacturers putting in applications to build these factories and how long that takes. Never mind land procurement, transport agreements etc etc or the design of the plants and that's before a single sod is dug to build these new formula factories.

It's not going to happen in any sort of useful time frame and that's one single issue,