Is this an illegal promotion?

[AgaPanthers]

See attached Ocado advert from Google search for 'SMA gold'

I don't think the manufacturers of fairy knowingly and wilfully exploit vulnerable babies.

I do care how people feed their babies. I want them to be able to make a choice is right for them without being exploited. I don't care whether you choose bf or ff.

The law is not discrimination. It's an attempt to protect consumers.

But surely it would be ocado/asda/boots' lookout if they offered these things not the f maker's?

They can't use cheaper ingredients, formula is strictly monitored and they must pass tests to ensure that are fit for consumption.

Im pretty sure given the current economic climate the majority of women would rather have free milk that comes from them than the powder that costs them an arm and a leg.

And women who chose to formula feed have made a informed choice, but this law that is in place is vilifying them and making them pay out of pocket for a choice they made.

I dint think BF mothers would like it if suddenly you had to pay to feed, and all the pamphlets and support networks removed because it was "promoting" a way of feeding a baby.

Also- I buy a monthly delivery pass from the supermarket so each delivery is free as long as I spend £40- I'm sure I've included a tin of f to "make up" the spend before??

The law is not vilifying you. The law is not making you pay out of pocket. It is trying to stop you being exploited and to protect the health of your babies. The blanket ban on promotion has to be this rigid or they'd have a loophole. The formula companies choose the massive mark up on milk to make money from you. Of course. It's business.But the mark up is phenomenal and they are perfectly at liberty to permanently reduce their prices to something more realistic but they don't and won't. Take away the restrictions and they'd charge far more in the long run and they'd use the power to promote not to save you money but to exploit you.

This is getting ridiculous.

FF mothers are being 'villified' now?!

Why? Because they are not permitted to get a quid off their formula.

Manufacturers are perfectly at liberty to charge what they want for their products.

They choose to keep prices high - to pay for advertising (all over the HCP journals where it is permitted; all over our TVs where follow on is advertised), to pay for clubs and 'free' tat like soft toys and helplines....

They can't use cheaper ingredients, formula is strictly monitored and they must pass tests to ensure that are fit for consumption.

Yes, and the same laws which protect babies by controlling the composition of formula also protect mothers and babies from insidious marketing when they are at their most vulnerable. You can't have it both ways.

What Boudicca said

Till you have visited family after family on the bread line struggling to make ends meet, you may then see why a buy one get one free offer, or a small amount of pence off on formula once in a while would be beneficial to them.

These mothers are doing the best they can, but because they may have been unable to or other reasons they areliterally being penalised at the check out for it.

If you can't see how the occasional promotion on a infant milk does more good than harm for many families, your never going to understand why it's a unfair law.

"And women who chose to formula feed have made a informed choice, but this law that is in place is vilifying them and making them pay out of pocket for a choice they made. "

The law doesn't make people pay out of pocket, the formula companies do that. No law says a can of SMA should cost £10, rather than £1.

The only reason Fairy liquid is on at £1 in one place and £2 somewhere else is because £1 is the actual fair price and you could in reality get better washing up liquid for 50p in Aldi.

Discounts are branded goods are not giveaways, they just inflate the price the rest of the time.

Boudicca, no, bf women would not like to pay to feed :)

Are you saying that to be fair, all formula should be free?

This is a view, of course, but the formula would have to be paid for somehow, through taxes.

Are you sure you have thought this one through?

It shouldn't be free, but the odd offer once in a while would go further than you think it will for some families.

Perhaps you'd prefer the American market, where there are no restrictions on the marketing of infant formula.

That sounds better, doesn't it?

Well guess what, the cost there is DOUBLE. You'll pay the equivalent of £20 for a can of infant formula powder over there.

Infant formula companies are about making money, that is all.

It's because the UK is a signatory to the Innocenti Declaration which supports the Implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.
This is a UNICEF initiative with 59 member countries who have agreed to limit the promotion of formula milk in order to protect breastfeeding.

Formula milk used to be free- it was given to new mothers in hospital in the 1950s and 60s. Not surprising that it coincided with the lowest breastfeeding rates in UK history.

Blimey, you really don't get it, Boudicca, do you? It's nothing to do with being unaware of families in need. Happily, many of those families get healthy start vouchers which allow something like the cost of a pack of formula per week to be free. Other families may also struggle and not be eligible, but what would really help them would be permanent low prices.

These would be achievable if there was the will, and also no helplines, advertising and 'free' marketing rubbish. You talk of feeling insulted and patronised. Dont you think all that gubbins is insulting? The manufacturer thinks you will be persuaded to use their product because it lets you join a crappy baby club, and send off for a 'free' fluffy animal. They also think you think all that is indeed 'free'.

So let's just say hypotheticaly we lift the ban.

Formula companies start to charge £25 a box, pricing themselves out of the market. Suddenly the choice to formula feed is practically taken a way for financial reasons , surely the uptake on breast feeding would be astronomical, nobody would choose to be as financially strung out as that!

So now bf becomes the default.

No formula company is going to price themselves out of a market, and one company will always remain low to monopolise on the sales. Only recently has their become 6 or more brands to choose from, some 30 years ago there were 2 maybe 3. Perhaps the market would default back to the 2/3, as the others would make themselves no longer a competitive market.

In this economic times, your more like to see a price war, like you do on cows milk and bread than a high rolling money battle. These formula companies know by pricing too high they'd encourage more to breastfeed.

Deepblue, not the innocenti declaration, though the uk did indeed sign it. It had no legislative force. At least I think I am right here!

Our laws predate the innocenti declaration.

Boudicca, I don't know where to start.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about, sorry.

So many errors of fact and understanding....

Boudicca, consider Aptamil. It is required by law to be virtually identical to every other infant formula but it is significantly more expensive than the others. Why? Because it is positioned as a 'premium' brand and product and a higher price point is an important part of this branding.

Price isn't solely dictated by market competition.

No I'm telling you that formula feeding mothers are not going to flock and suddenly change formula because of advertising. They are not going to just go for the cheapest. That a bogof offer once in a while isn't going to send formula feeding mothers in to a frenzie. That budging infant milk up like it's tobacco and weapons is unfair.

That it's insulting to think that formula feeding mothers go doe eyed at a offer, and push their child's needs aside to save 40p.

Formula is treated like some dirty product not to be mentioned, without it many babies would starve, many families would struggle and they are penalised for it. Whatever you say about marketing and so forth. The fact is buying formula to feed a child sometimes feels like your buying tobacco or some other highly restricted product, when there's no need for it to be.

"Formula companies start to charge £25 a box, pricing themselves out of the market. Suddenly the choice to formula feed is practically taken a way for financial reasons , surely the uptake on breast feeding would be astronomical, nobody would choose to be as financially strung out as that!"

Nope, in the US they have formula subsidies for poor people. So the poor end up paying the same as they do here, and everyone else pays much more.

And the government chips in a fortune to the formula companies.

How fantastic is that?

I don't think formula manufacturers would charge £25 a box with no restrictions on marketing. The price at present is what the uk market will bear.

The number of manufacturers has remained stable in the uk for decades. There have been a few attempts at infiltrating and innovating in this sector but it is very difficult to break in. About 25 years ago legislation was enacted to prevent maternity units from accepting free formula deals. Until then, maternity units got free formula in exchange for exclusivity ie you had one or perhaps two choices of formula, given to the units because this led to women sticking with that one brand.

That restriction was seen as anti competitive (thatcher's Britain did not like it) so it was banned and mat. Units have to negotiate deals which allow for a range of brands.

"The fact is buying formula to feed a child sometimes feels like your buying tobacco or some other highly restricted product, when there's no need for it to be."

No it bloody doesn't, it's on a low shelf in the supermarket/Boots, a child could buy it.

How about you send your 11-year-old to buy a pack of Rothmans, a tin of SMA and a six-pack of Stella. See how it goes.