Nestle milk scandel

[Love51]

My 10 year old was asking why people don't like Nestle. My actual knowledge and understanding of the milk scandel is a bit vague - I think they got new mums in 3rd world countries to use formula then hiked up the prices. Is there more to it? I think water supply came into it somehow. What were the countries / regions concerned. Does anyone have a link to a fairly simple article that explains it? Thanks.

Fucking hell.

They are disgraceful and never learn. They give not one fuck about babies dying. What kind of people work there?

Thank you everyone who answered. I have boycotted Nestle as long as I can remember but at this point in time it is basically habit. The only time I struggled was when I spent an extended time in Asia (2 decades ago), I don't know how widespread the boycott is the there.
I'm surprised about the Dr training, I would have thought that given how busy Drs are they would be really selective about which training they attended. I've read the articles (but not the book, I will be looking for a copy though).
I'm also surprised at "WHO guideline for the European region" as I naively would have thought WHO guidelines were the same everywhere!

https://www.reddit.com/r/FuckNestle/

still plenty of good reasons to boycott, ongoing now

Definitely.
I was born in 1965 and my mum always told of how when I was born (at home) the midwife said that seeing as she'd be returning to work, she'd need medication to stop her milk. No choice, it was presented to her like that.
I don't know anybody my age who was breastfed except one friend.

When searching for The Politics of Breastfeeding after seeing it recommended on here, I discovered there is an edited version of the book that distils its core ideas down into a much shorter book. Could be handy OP, maybe not immediately for your DD, but in due course.

I have occasionally wondered whether it was still worth my tiny contribution to the boycott, and this has confirmed it. I knew, unconnected with Nestle, about the 'rights' of water companies with regard to rain, as my BiL had to pay for the rain which fell on the roof of his warehouse and ran away into the local stream, but did not realise how entrenched in the business mind it was. No right to water??!! (That may explain the attitude of water companies to pollution. If they already own the water, they have every right to use it as spare sewers.) I have, over the years, seen other companies fall into the Nestle abyss, and favourite products become part of the boycott. The last Shreddy, the last Fruit Gum, KitKat - and Rowntree was a particularly bad loss as it meant that a company founded on moral Quakerly principles had fallen into the clutches of the immoral. So I thank you for this update, and will keep on reading the labels, and finding alternative sources for condensed milk.

Rowntree? Damn.

Here's a useful list:

https://www.nestle.com/brands/brandssearchlist

Felix was one I wasn't aware of.

Althoug re Haagen Dazs, I think EU/UK made HD is not Nestle owned?

It’s interesting/sinister given the discussion of water in all of this, just how many brands of bottled water they own. I didn’t realise many were part of Nestle, like San Pellegrino.

When I went to visit my family in India, my cousin had just had a baby. She was fairly middle class- servants, a comfortable home, professional job etc. The midwives were telling her to ' top up her milk with formula' it was routinely done with all the babies. When I has my own baby a couple of years later, the midwives were saying the same thing- if your breastfed baby can't go 4 hours without milk ( at birth!?) you arent producing enough milk!

Many doctors have poor understanding of breastfeeding because there isn't the same amount of free training as pharma and formula companies can afford to run.

I have major trust issues with information we are told when the research, training and funding are coming from the very places whose success relies solely on what we believe and that we largely trust what we’re told.

Even vets are sponsored by dog food manufacturers, and are trained to believe that grain-filled kibble is the healthiest diet for a dog.

It’s extremely unethical, but weirdly most people don’t question it, go along with it and are happy to stick to the party line.

Out of interest (and slightly playing devils advocate 🤣 ) do you also boycott the other 8 brands who scored as being less ethical than Nestle? I appreciate Oxfam aren't the final judge and jury but as far as I'm aware it was an unbiased, long term review of practises across the board. I totally appreciate that in this day and age it is hard to avoid all the big brands and far more costly (and thus often not achievable ) to stay local/independent. Just interesting to see that the Nestle boycott still has so many champions but suspect other practises are flying under the radar.

Oxfam judging anyone after the behaviour of their staff in Haiti and other places is a bit rich as well.

Yeah it is. I boycott loads of places. It makes no immediate difference and I make plenty of errors but it makes me feel better. I don’t buy drugs for the same reason - people like to scoff and point out the contradictions when people say they make these choices but let’s face it - they are good choices. We need to bring back boycotts but when people can’t even be arsed to boycott Temu I guess there is no chance

Damn! I started buying Haagen dazs as it’s one of the few ice creams that isn’t full of junk additives. I will have a closer look at the label next time.

Can't really see the point of hating on nestle anymore. The formula thing was a long time ago and they've been grovelling ever since.

They make formula and baby food, as well as lots of other things. People want those things, in all countries. I'm pretty sure they've learned their lessons from the past. They now fund lots of research into childhood nutrition.

A similar scandal to nestle was the dalkon shield - a coil that turned out to mutilate a proportion of the women who used it. Withdrawn in the west but they had loads left over so they shipped them to developing countries.

Interesting list. It is slightly chilling to see all that water. The only things I ever buy are San Pellegrino and a very occasional KitKat so a boycott wouldn't be much trouble.

@haveatye there are some articles linked here about their contemporary practices.

I saw a tv program not so long ago about boats of floating junk food down the Amazon maybe I think that was nestle.

even watching a follow on milk advert now is a lesson in deception with babies that look young and weasel wording and disclaimers. Considering they don’t even understand breast milk how can they replace it?

I too boycott Nestlé, but is there a way to find out who makes supermarket own-brand products? Which of those are Nestlé with an own-brand label?

I seem to remember a TV ad that said Kelloggs don’t make cereal for anyone else. Looking at my tin of Tesco condensed milk and wondering how I would know.

Which 8 brands?

go.skimresources.com?id=470X1716091&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.behindthebrands.org%2Fcompany-scorecard%2F&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mumsnet.com%2Ftalk%2Ffeminism%2F5095087-nestle-milk-scandel%3Freply%3D135958670

The other brands listed here. Like I said earlier it's a shame they stopped in 2016 but it just helps point out that although Nestle get a lot of bad press most big companies aren't great ethically. But I also appreciate that everyone does the best they can with the info they have and the resources they have available to them!!

And now I see (Thankyou MN for the banner advert) that the new push is to provide a nutritional drink for “ fussy eaters”. Admittedly I haven’t looked at the contents, but I think this sounds like yet another product designed to part anxious parents from their money.

Certainly, multinationals have a lot of issues.

I'm not aware of other multinationals deliberately carrying out unethical research that has quite likely lead directly to baby deaths, though.

While there are many questionable, unethical, and harmful practises, this one seemed so utterly outright undeniably evil that I've never been able to see past it when it comes to Nestle.