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.

[clucks]

We have been boycotting nestle for the past 10 years (since my volunteering with a Save the Children clinic) fairly successfully.

Big, recent problem, cheerios child who is a hunger striker. If anyone knows of own-brand cheerios type cereal, I would be grateful.

[SueW]

There'a a piece on the Advertising Standards Authority website which is the big Nestle complaint from 1999, upheld by the ASA. You will need to clikc on Adjudications, then find by company name for the period covering 1999. I tried to make a link, and I even tried makeashorterlink.com but no luck

IIRC, there was a big stink about it at the time, with it hitting the front cover of Marketing Week and Saatchi and Saatchi (??) advising them to hit the community funding bigtime.

[GeorginaA]

Careful - a lot of own-brands are made by Nestle too. Would Weetos be acceptable? I think they're made by Weetabix?

[clucks]

This reminds me, does boycotting work?

I first heard about nestle a good few years ago and have tried to boycott since and I'm sure many other more active boycotters have too.

They are still going strong, aren't they. What powers do we have, even collectively, against the multinationals. Are we deluding ourselves?

[susanmt]

I dunno if we have any powers clucks. It makes me feel better, amybe that is the crux of why we do it.
Have noticed that the replies from Nestle (must dig one out to quote, try to do it tomorrow) are more conciliatory since dh's company (OK, Gp surgery with 21 staff) started boycotting too, thay don't like losing corporate trade, that it fo sure!

[bossykate]

rhubarb, oh dear!

try this Make trade fair

have previewed and it works but if not...

try cutting and pasting this >> www.maketradefair.com/spage/english/action14.asp?cat=1%82%22cat=1&select=1&special=yes&a=4862

[bossykate]

clucks, we got ds off cheerios (he was a complete addict) by moving him on to shreddies! so will now have to go cold turkey on those and move on to... bran flakes?? he will eat those.

georgina makes a good point re own brand - you can't be too careful.

[clucks]

Branflakes, mmm, intestinal brillo-pad. Might sort out the constipation too. Thanks

off to bed now, will follow this thread closely.

[Rhubarb]

Did it! Thanks Bossykate! Maybe if we all send an email, and tell our friends to do the same, we'll crash their systems as happened at the White House, and that'll have an impact at least!

[WideWebWitch]

I think consumer boycotts do work if they are large and well publicised enough, simply because they hit a company where it really hurts: their bottom line. In the case of Nestle if enough people boycott their products it might make a difference. It's certainly worth doing IMO. There's an article about successful boycotts here . I agree with the evil flourishing and good people doing nothing quote. Quite.

[suedonim]

Nestle are plain lying when they say they don't promote their babymilks. I saw a young woman in a supermarket in Jakarta just a couple of months ago wearing a nursing uniform with "Nestle Nutrisioni" writ large across the front. I so wished I'd had a camera on me. They also display ordinary dried whole milk powder next to formula, luring the unwary into giving their baby whole milk instead of properly formulated baby milk because they think they are interchangeable.

They are not the only ones, of course, to use such tactics, but they are the biggest compnay to do so. I've boycotted N** for some years now although it is very difficult indeed in Indonesia, where they appear to own the entire country, if advertisements are anything to go by.

Other violations of the WHO code that I've noted, by companies other than N**, are the sale of Similac formula with no information in the local language and recently, the description of breast milk substitutes such as rusks, cereals and ready prepared meals by Hipp as being suitable from 'the fourth month' when it used to be from 'four months' and in any case has been supplanted by the WHO recommendation of 6 mths.

[Skara]

Clucks, if you're looking for a non-N*** o-shaped cereal then there's a brand available in healthfood stores called Heritage O's. See here for a picture/to buy them (never tried this store, but it was the first link I found today

[jasper]

My bil used to be an accountant for nestle. He said the boycotts were like p*ssing in the wind as far as the effects on the company.

[bossykate]

have found the quotation that i couldn't get right last night.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - attributed to Edmund Burke.

[aloha]

Suedonim - well, that pretty much clinches it as far as Nestle's lies are concerned. Thank you. As for the claims on their website are concerned, Mandy Rice Davies words come back to me - 'well, they would say that, wouldn't they?'

They have repeatedly complained about Babymilk Action's statments to the ASA, but have lost every claim. So much for truth and integrity there.

I really wouldn't rely on a corporate website for truth personally.

Re the boycott, it clearly does work as they have substantially tried to change their policies and they devote so much of their website to trying to attack the boycott.

I have just emailed Nestle.co.uk via their website to express my disgust.

I think it is easy to say, 'oh, well, my tiny contribution won't change anything' and do nothing, but a lot of tiny actions can achieve a great deal.

[GeorginaA]

Bear in mind that they do have food nutritionists (nothing to do with their babymilk arm - could this be the nutritionist that was seen - they do not advise on milk but on general food nutrition).

[suedonim]

Not in the babymilk section, surely, Georgina? Tbh, I think that's splitting hairs. I must say, N*** are not the only offenders - I've seen other nutritionist reps in supermarkets, from US companies.

As for the boycott, I don't know whether or not it actually affects companies, (although as they devote time and money to PR about it, I guess that it must hit home a bit) but I simply prefer not to be associated with Nestle's ethics.

As well as Baby Milk Action the IFBAN site is most informative.

[GeorginaA]

Sorry Suedomin you didn't mention which section she was standing in. Perhaps you should have taken a camera or written to Nestle and WHO at the time reporting what you had seen - then maybe that incident could have been acted upon.

As I said, I don't think Nestle are whiter than white but I certainly don't think they're the devil personified as many people seem to want them to be.

Do you really think they'd bother spending all that money on aggressive selling tactics on a side of the business that contributes only a fraction to the company as a whole? Their coffee arm is a far more important part of their holdings and I know that advertising and promotional money gets spent very carefully according to profitability.

I'd be interested to know what Nestle could do to make you happy. Stop selling babymilk completely? Not let any country in the world have that option (thereby encouraging less advisable substitutes like condensed milk, rice water, etc?). Or do you just want it banned in developing countries - it's okay for the Western world to have that choice but not for anyone else?

I really can't see that they can do much more than follow the WHO code and stamp quickly on any reported WHO code violations. Just the same as I would expect from any babymilk manufacturer.

[aloha]

GeorginaA, it does seem funny that for all Nestle's protestations, there are two first-hand accounts of the realities of their marketing strategies on this little site alone - and not that many people contribute to it. That surely implies a pretty large problem. The issues surrounding babymilk are quite different in the third world than they are in the affluent West. Illiteracy makes it hard for mothers to use formula safely, as does poverty (which encourages watering down) as does unsafe water. In these countries companies should obey WHO guidelines to the spirit and the letter. There should be no promotion (certainly not women disguised as nurses encouraging women who would otherwise breastfeed to use formula), no free samples, no powdered whole milk feature smiling babies, no powdered milk in the formula aisle etc etc. I am highly suspicious of all the breastfeeding information leaflets produced for third world countries they boast about. In many of these countries b/f rates have traditionally been so high as to be near universal and the skills handed down from mother to daughter - I'll bet these leaflets are nicely branded with the Nestle logo and give pretty pointless 'advice' as a way of getting their name associated with feeding. Personally, I don't think there are any excuses for either the actions mentioned here regarding baby milk, or for their attempts to snatch food from the mouths of the starving in Ethiopia.

[aloha]

Also, regarding their coffee business - Oxfam has quite a lot to say about their actions in this field. Families that rely on subsistence coffee farming are in desperate trouble right now owing to the terrible prices paid by the big companies including Nestle. Buy Fairtrade - it really does make a difference to the lives of these families.

[aloha]

One more thing - in countries where nearly 100% of women breastfeed, this represents a huge potential market for their formula products so of course they will focus marketing efforts on this vast 'untapped' market. Their own annual reports admit as much - there are extracts from them on the Babymilk Action Website about how much 'progress' has been made in Asia, for example, and to me they make chilling reading.

[suedonim]

I reported what what I'd seen to BMA, so I have taken action already wrt reps.

Baby products may only be a small part of Nestle's business but it's an important one because it builds brand loyalty which is where they stand to make much more money.

Personally, I don't see this issue as one that concerns Third World countries alone. I get just as peeved by hospitals in the UK handing out leaflets at booking clinics that have 'Cow&Gate' emblazened on them. The issue isn't about whether or not formula is available, it's about whether it is marketed ethically and fairly. If baby milk manufacturers really did stick rigorously to the WHO code, that would be a start.

[Lucy123]

Yes I think I've just gone from being a mild skeptic on the Nestle-milk-marketing thing to eing a believer. I stick to my skepticism about consumer boycotts (they may be protesting innocence , but they're still doing it aren't they?), but I will nonetheless join in. Can anyone think of a suitable replacement for my beloved Shreddies?

BossyKate - just been to that website and was very impressed, so thanks. I've emailed the link to everyone I know. In fact here it is again for anyone who can't be bothered to scroll down:
www.maketradefair.com/spage/english/action14.asp?cat=1%82%22cat=1&select=1&special=yes&a=4862

[aloha]

Great link Bossykate, not sure if my email was sent however. May try again.
I think we should all do this. Wasn't John Humphreys great on Today? I loved, 'Why are you so hostile" "because people are starving to death' - go John!

[tiktok]

Suedonim - that's spot on. Nestle would really like us to eat Nestle products from cradle to grave. They want mothers to get into the way of mixing up meals - look how many of their food products require you to do this - and calling it nutritious. Brand loyalty is everything - it doesn't matter if penny for penny the baby milk money is a small part of their income.