Nestlé moves from obfuscation to outright lies

by Lauredhel on October 1, 2009

in activism/charity, ethics & philosophy, exploitation, social justice

This seems a good point to start a new post.

Many Nestle-bloggers seem to be continuing to believe that by taking their questions straight to the company, they will get honest replies, and will clear up all these decades of silly misunderstanding in a jiffy. Under great pressure, Nestle corporate representatives have finally joined in on twitter, as @nestlefamily, to try to defend the brand, and the bloggers that they roped in, uninformed and untrained, to be their PR agents.

Here was one of the first questions asked of Nestlé at their @nestlefamily account, by @momslant:

@nestlefamily’s reply:

Whew! Well, that changes everything! None of these countries have experienced any kind of Nestlé formula marketing at all! None of them!

Let’s pick just one to test the assertion. Let’s pick, say, the Philippines, where the Formula For Disaster film was filmed. The Philippines, where Nestlé called for the heads of UNICEF and WHO Philippines to be recalled for speaking out in favour of breastfeeding at a time when stronger formula marketing regulations were being considered by the Supreme Court. The Philippines, where Nestlé employs nurses as ‘Health Educators’ and sends them into the community to promote Nestogen infant formula to new mothers (more). The Philippines, where Nestlé’s direct marketing to mothers received a business award. The Philippines, where Nestle provides free Nestle-branded gifts to healthcare workers. The Philippines, where the government has been fighting a long, drawn-out battle with formula companies who want unrestricted marketing (to the point where a government lawyer was assassinated), and where Nestle have been involved in opposing key provisions of formula marketing restrictions (more here).

Next? Shall we move on to, say, the Ukraine? Bangladesh?

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Tagged as: bottle feeding, breastfeeding, breastmilk substitutes, code, formula, formula marketing, infant formula, marketing, nestle, philippines, ukraine, who code

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This article was written by lauredhel

Lauredhel is a forty-something woman with a disability. She lives in her Western Australian family home where books, Lego, and soapmaking gear constantly compete for space. She blogs about feminism, reproductive justice, freedom from violence, the use and misuse of language, medical science, being disabled, her vegetable garden, and whatever else pops into her head. Lauredhel also blogs at FWD/Forward (feminists with disabilities), scribbles at her personal dreamwidth journal Selective and Arbitrary, and co-moderates Hollaback Australia. She joined Hoyden About Town in 2007.

lauredhel has written 1311 posts for Hoyden About Town. If you liked this post, you might like to subscribe to the feed via RSS or EMAIL to get instantly updated for more posts like this.

{ 2 trackbacks }

Disco Knitter » Blog Archive » Why Nestle Sucks: October 2, 2009 at 9:03 am
VegeSmite? Some quick thoughts on #vegefail & #nestlefamily « Tama Leaver dot Net: October 2, 2009 at 5:51 pm

{ 12 comments }

1 Artemnesia October 1, 2009 at 12:22 pm: I guess we’re not actually going to get any answers from them. Surprise surprise.
2 meloukhia October 1, 2009 at 12:24 pm: I was monumentally unimpressed by Scott’s response to the one question of mine he did answer, which was about violating WHO standards for formula marketing. He simply lied and said they didn’t, and then failed to answer the rest of my questions.

I think what’s been very interesting about this debate is that when people like you have calmly presented facts and supporting information to back up those facts, the bloggers attending the conference have attended with “we’re being attacked!” I had no idea that discussing the ethical implications involved in accepting handouts from Nestle was an attack…and was amused to see them saying that people should “just ask Nestle for all the answers,” as though people hadn’t been trying to communicate with Nestle about corporate wrongdoing for over 30 years.
3 Carol October 1, 2009 at 12:29 pm: Obviously the definition of developing country is a country that Nestle’ doesn’t market to.
4 tigtog October 1, 2009 at 12:51 pm: Wow. Nestlé are such blatant liars.

You only have to go to the http://www.babymilk.nestle.com email alert sign-up page and look at all the countries on the drop down list.
5 TheFeministBreeder October 1, 2009 at 12:55 pm: WOW! That’s some serious outright lying! Just gross.
6 Mindy October 1, 2009 at 1:10 pm: @ Carol – I read yesterday that that means Bangladesh and Burkina Faso, coincidentally the two poorest nations on earth.
7 tigtog October 1, 2009 at 1:16 pm: 2008: Nestle recalls baby milk powder from SAfrica, Botswana, Zambia …

Swiss food giant Nestle said Wednesday it had withdrawn 250 shipments of baby milk powder from South Africa, Botswana and Zambia due to defects in the mixture.

The problem batch of Lactogen 1, produced in South Africa and sold in the three Southern African states, had been found to contain overly high amounts of zinc, copper and iron.
8 Mike Brady October 1, 2009 at 4:03 pm: Baby Milk Action’s take on the event:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/09/nestle-family-twitters.html
9 Carol October 2, 2009 at 12:08 am: I was making a joke . Nestle says it doesn’t market in developing country therefore those countries aren’t developing. (As if we’d let a corporation define “developing country” to us. Like letting Polanski define ‘rape’.)
10 Candace October 2, 2009 at 1:10 am: I took that to mean that Nestle US doesn’t…that they were answering only for Nestle US. Quite the dodge.
11 moorspede October 2, 2009 at 7:03 am: Slightly OT – Nestle to stop buying milk from Mugabe’s farm
12 DeusExMacintosh October 3, 2009 at 8:26 pm: Now we just have to monitor whether Nestle keeps to the assurance they gave the BBC that they wont start buying from the Dairy Board of Zimbabwe which will now be buying her milk.