PRODUCTS - Farleys now HEINZ Nurture...PRICE INCREASE!!!!

[rebstoddy]

I know from reading the message boards that there are lots of unhappy mums out there , due to the increase price, per tin of £3.30 that has been added to the Heinz nurture milk, which was formerly known as FARLEYS. I have twins, this is a MASSIVE increase for us & we should come together to do something about this, to show HEINZ that consumers DO still have power! The thing that annoys me the most is this price increase could have been notified, as the change of tins was notified. It's not ok to just change our babies formula over, this can cause stomach upset, constipation, vomiting. Heinz try to tell us they care for our babies, CLEARLY, they are all about PROFIT ...so let's hit 'em where it hurts!!!
We should boycott Heinz products for a week, all of their products, for one week. Believe me, they will notice the decrease in sales. Get all your friends to do it too, even if they have NOT been affected by this sly price increase. Please, let me know by answering this thread, if you think, collectively, as mumsnet mummies, that we could arrange this.
best regards, ANGRY MUM of twins x

Can i just point out that Heinz Nurture sounds sufficiently different from Farleys now that you shouldn't worry about changing to a completely different brand. It has now got prebiotics (like Cow&Gate and Aptimil) and anti-constipation ingredient. Constipation shouldn't be a problem for most people anyway as long as mixed correctly and you give extra water in really hot weather if nec.

Happy to join boycott. Will not be buying Heinz Nurture at all. "Commited to fair prices" their Farley's tins say. Grrrr.

I too am totally disgusted with the price increase. I thought it was just going to be the packaging that was changing there was no mention of the shocking price increase. I couldnt beleive it when it went to Tesco. I thought the price had been marked wrong. Luckily Lidl had some on sale so I bought a few tins to keep me going. Dont know what I will do when it runs out I will have to change the brand definately not using Heinz!!! I will join the boycott too!

I totally agree. Im up for that boycott. I couldnt belive my eyes when I saw the price the other day. Arent we getting ripped off already with everything else like petrol etc, thing is as a family we have tried to cut down on petrol etc but cant put my poor little 6 month old on a diet. This milk is a necessity. These companies shouldnt be able to do this, im on my second email to them so far with no reply.

What makes me feel mad is that the only two places that stock farleys near me (boots and morrisons) took it off their shelfs about a week ago and aren't going to be getting that 'nuture' in stock till the 23rd of july so I've got no choice but to switch to something else, if they'd have given warning of when exactly it was going off the shelfs I could have stocked up instead of getting caught off guard and wondering which milk I should try.

This Nurture milk isn't just a change in name & packaging. If you compare it to the other milks that are out there it's actually the most advanced of the milks available. It has got prebiotics (like cow & gate and Aptamil) & a special protein in it (like Sma)& it has also got a special vegetable oil ingredient in it which makes the poo runnier thus preventing constipation. I have a couple of friends who are health visitors & they thinks it's a great idea as a lot of their time is taken up with constipated babies. I know its the only milk made in this country & that the companies are strictly regulated as to what they can & can't advertise to parents. I know that there were leaflets under the plastic lid of the Farleys tins telling people of the change to this new milk so it shouldn't have come as a complete surprise to anyone who used Farleys on a regular basis. I rang the careline to see if the price was changing & they said that it was so I was prepared for it. The price of Farleys HASN'T gone up by over £3 a tin as Farley's milk doesn't exist any more. I have put my little one on Nurture & haven't had a problem with it. I for one won't be swapping to another brand. My sister had her babies on SMA and they were bunged up like anything. My little one has been on Nurture for almost 2 weeks now & is doing well on it. If I'd wanted to use the milk which was the cheapest I would have breast fed.

you sound like you work for farleys/heinz

babies poo should not need to be made runny by the addition of vegetable oil

Glad your baby is happy on this new milk, Bond. But how do you know this milk is 'actually the most advanced of the milks available'?

Softer poo is not necessarily a good thing in itself. See the thread on novel ingredients for the concerns that have been raised in the US.

Anyway....lets say it is the most advanced milk (though again - how would you know?)...wouldn't it be a kindness to all ff babies to have this runny-poo-making ingredient in all brands?

This won't happen, though.

Slightly off the main topic here, but when formula is a closed market (or sorry should that be subject to price fixing?) - ie most brands are around the same price, how come HIPPS is cheaper?

They can charge what they like as long as it is a consistent price, poorbuthappy.

Having said that, Hipp does not have prebiotics in it (as they cannot be made organically) and this might keep the price down.

But there are other reasons for pricing - some brands are priced deliberately higher to appeal to a different sector of the market.

Well why didnt they bring this wonder milk out (nurture) and still sell the farleys then, dont care what any one says. The price is still too high no matter what the ingredients. Softer poo???? Not sure about that one. Well I still will not be using it.!!!! In fact not use any heinz products from now on. Not all women thrive with breastfeeding either, did give it a go for a while but when you got a hungry baby then demand is too high.

No I don't work for Farley's or Heinz. In relation to the ingredients of this milk compared to the others out there I did my homework & found out what they all contained or rather what the differential was between them. The other milks have either one (prebiotics) or the other (special protein)in them whereas this Nurture has got both those & the vegetable oil mix in it. I don't know if there's anything to stop the other companies putting it in their milk but if they do I can't imagine the price staying the same. I chose Farley's milk purely because it was made in this country. I didn't give the prebiotic or protein thing a thought when I chose Farley's but when I knew it was being changed I thought I'd better look a bit more closely at what was available. Contrary to what was said about constipation not being a problem it actually is one of the major problems associated with feeding cows milk to babies. I found all this information out by speaking to my GP, my health visitor and searching the internet. When I knew that farleys was being changed it made me realise I shouldn't decide to use something without researching it first - especially when it comes to my child. I know money is tight for a lot of people (me included - I'm a single mother)but when it comes to my baby I have to say that I won't cut corners price wise. I'm amazed that so many people read what was on the leaflet & didn't think that the price might go up. Agreed, Heinz should have put something on the leaflet about the change in price but what would have changed if they'd warned people? They wouldn't have reduced the price or carried on making the Farley's.

after reading just a few of your comment i dont think i will give my son the new nurture i keep stocked up so have some old farleys he wont toch anything else
my child hasbeen on farleys since he was born and i have told everyone how fantastic it is but now hienz have shot themselves in the foot with this

Which was it, Bond? The fact it was made in this country (I didn't know that - and I can understand it would sway your decision) or the fact it is 'the most advanced' formula? Or both? Is it not understandable to be sceptical of 'advanced' ? You're right about the uniqueness of the combined ingredients in 'Nurture' but that doesn't make it better.

I think the issue is that we can't tell which is the 'best' formula, as there is no one telling us this apart from the people who make it, and they have something of a vested interest

You'll have seen from other threads that new ingredients are not always without controversy or concerning side-effects.

If you look at the Nurture website you'll see that the ingredient it has in it is called Betapol. If you google Betapol you'll find that Cow & Gate have had it in one of their specialist milks for quite a while so it's only a new ingredient to Heinz although it might be that they have had it in their milks in other countries before now as well. They can't just put anything into the milks - it is strictly regulated. They wouldn't have been able to put it in the milk unless it had been trialled and approved for use in the UK. I read somewhere in this thread that the amount of children it was tested on was small. As I understand it this is not unusual in clinical research involving children. It's also worth looking at who is doing the research. If it's someone on that payroll (as is a lot of the research that Cow & Gate and Aptamil undertake) then you can say there is a bias there to begin with i.e. it is not truly independent research.

Bond, I agree that formula is regulated in the UK. It's quite wrong - as some posts on mumsnet have hinted - to suggest that formula with new ingredients is put on sale casually and without any official check on safety or suitability. These checks do take place, of course they do. However, there are other commercial interests at work, as you acknowledge.

www.sacn.gov.uk/meetings/committee/main_sacn_meetings/27092001.html This comes from 2001, when the relevant govt. advisory body looked at Betapol. They asked for more information and research before approving it (it was, and is, an ingredient in Omneo Comfort, a 'speciality' formula marketed for babies with, well, I am not sure, colic and sensitive tummies, I think).

The further research was not forthcoming: "Meanwhile, new EC regulations came into force under which Betapol no longer needed final clearance as a novel food because it was already being marketed and had a history of use in some EC countries. Therefore, the manufacturer did not pursue COMA?s request for long-term follow up data. "

This makes me feel uncomfortable - and disinclined to accept that formulas with this ingredient are necessarily 'advanced'.

To thenameisbond - I think you are missing the point here - ALL mums have the best interests of their babies in mind when buying anything for them. The PROBLEM here is that the mums who were feeding their babies FARLEYS were notified ONLY of a branding difference with the tins, NOT the ingredients, not the price. So, yes, had heinz been upfront with this information, the mums would have been able to make an INFORMED choice about sticking with nurture or changing to a different milk. I have twins, who were bf til 3 months exclusively, then ff as well as bf for a while...had I known what was coming, I would have continued bf but stopped...my poor babies were subjected to horrendous runny poo which made them really sore & I have had to change to another formula, it's pretty rude of you to suggest that price is the biggest issue here, it's NOT but - my husbands wages will not increase over night by over 50% so why should the price of this formula? I also find it VERY hard to believe that MOST babies suffer with constipation...MOST babies do NOT have COWS MILK til 6 months+ so this is not really a relevant piece of information or am I missing the whole formula point?! I have 4 children & none of mine have been constipated. HEINZ should be ASHAMED of what they have done - I will NOT be buying anything with heinz branding EVER again. I may be a small fish but if I jump high enough out of the pond, I will make a BIG ripple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crumbs at 'runnyer poop' pampers will go up in price soon as well due to increased sales of nappies and wipes.

Makes me glad my current family are breast feeding, using Bambino Mio and cotton wool.

Hmmmmm.

Something doesn't smell right in here.

Is that you, Bond?

"MOST babies do NOT have COWS MILK til 6 months"

Except if they're drinking formula, as most formula is made from cow's milk.

Bond:

Constipation is a big problem for ff babies, but even so - the majority don't have it, if the research done by the Department of Health is to be believed.

If Betapol softens the stool of babies whose stools are already, presumably, soft, then is this really desirable?

I don't normally question people's motives for posting, but I am very curious as to what drew you to this Heinz thread for your first posting on Mumsnet, Bond.

Forgive me for saying so, but you are sounding to me rather more like a PR person for Heinz than a well-informed mother.

Blimey - is it her first posting? Then it is a bit, um, odd, isn't it?

OTOH, mumsnet has been in the press in connection with the hoo-hah and she may have been drawn to mumsnet as a result of those news stories.

She is very well-informed though - she knew that Comfort had Betapol in it, which is specialist knowledge indeed (I didn't know until I drilled into the SACN website and it isn't on C&G's website or named as such in their ingredients). She could be an HV or other HCP.

Bond:

'If I'd wanted to use the milk which was the cheapest I would have breast fed.'

Oh right so now we are making formula feeding aspirational

Get back to composing press releases Bond and leave us to our boycott.

Bond's posts strike me as lacking in authenticity. If I sat down and teased out the timbre of her posts, her tone - it's the juxtaposition of comments like: "the companies are strictly regulated as to what they can & can't advertise to parents" and "My sister had her babies on SMA and they were bunged up like anything". It's incongruous, the mix of marketing speak with slightly iffy sounding personal information.

Also these comments: "The price of Farleys HASN'T gone up by over £3 a tin as Farley's milk doesn't exist any more"; "If I'd wanted to use the milk which was the cheapest I would have breast fed" and "but when it comes to my baby I have to say that I won't cut corners price wise". Those sound like the sort of things a childless person would say!

You can just 'smell' when someone is a plant. I used to be an English teacher - I taught A level English language and would spend a lot of time analysing style and tone. If I had the time and the mental energy I could pick out specifically what it is that is 'wrong' with her posts.

That's what I thought. The posts just read a little strangely.

Was particularly struck by her comment "If I'd wanted to use the milk which was the cheapest I would have breast fed." which suggests that use of formula wasn't forced by problems with breastfeeding, but because she believed it to be nutritionally the best for her baby. And given that she is so well informed as to the constituent elements of various types of infant milk, I'm a bit surprised that she would be unaware of the health benefits of breast milk over any of the formulas.

Big apologies, Bond, if you are genuine non-affiliated mum.

(I just can't help thinking that if I were in charge of PR at Heinz and had read all this stuff about boycotts in the press, I might think about sending someone down to mumsnet to try to limit the damage.)

x-posts. Yes, sabire - I agree about the odd juxtapositions of tone.