The Wardman Wire

I’ve been sacked as Santa. It’s a relief, to be honest. After 2 hours last year at the school Christmas party in a false beard and badly-fitting suit, it’ll be more fun dishing out hot dogs.

But the worst thing was the contents of Santa’s sack. A Nestlé selection pack for every child. It’s not the chocolates I’m against, it’s who makes them.

Background: Breast is Best

The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.5 million babies die each year because they are not adequately breastfed. Despite what is claimed on baby milk substitutes, breast milk is still far superior for babies as a source of nutrition and disease prevention. What’s more, it is safer - where formula milk has to be made up from contaminated or unsafe water supplies, there is a high risk to the baby. The risk of death from diarrhoea and pneumonia increases 25-fold if a family uses formula milk in an area with an unhygenic water supply.

So the WHO has a set of marketing codes, to safeguard vulnerable people. These include limits on the marketing claims for formula milk, and on selling practices. They state:

“There should be no advertising or other form of promotion of products. There should be no point-of-sale advertising, giving of samples or any other promotional device to induce sales directly to the consumer at the retail level, such as special displays, discount coupons, premiums, special sales, lossleaders and tie-in sales. Marketing personnel should not seek direct or indirect contact with pregnant women or with mothers of infants and young children.” (Article 5).

What has Nestlé Done?

Nestlé has a history of agressive marketing of breast milk substitutes, which led to campaigns for a global boycott in the 1970s. Though Nestlé has agreed to abide by the WHO code, campaigning groups Baby Milk Action (UK) and Ibfan claim that it has continued to violate the codes, and has done so more often than any other company. Whilst breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months as the best option for a childs health, Nestlé markets is products in the developing world as suitable from 4 months, and sometimes much younger. Health workers and key opinion formers are given gifts and free samples, and claims of health benefits of milk substitutes are exaggerated. Some of the claimed violations include:

- In Indonesia hospitals get discounted samples of Nestlé products, and free samples are given out by health workers.

- In Bangladesh doctors are given fliers with pictures of a formula milk brand to give out to mothers. Technically it’s ‘information’, but it functions as advertising. Doctors and health workers are showered with gifts by Nestlé and other companies, despite this being forbidden by the WHO code. For a full report see this Guardian article.

- In China, the worlds biggest market, Nestlé is having a big marketing push. Newborn babies are given wristbands with the Nestlé formula milk logo. Exclusive breastfeeding of infants has declined from 76% to 64% in less than 10 years. Nestlé has stationed doctors in Chinese supermarkets to give out free samples and deal with questions. The international code on marketing of breast milk substitutes forbids promotion direct to parents, but this is exactly what is happening in China. Around 100,000 deaths per year of children under 5 in China are due to poor infant feeding practices

For every £1 spent on the promotion of breastfeeding in the developing world, there is £10 spent on marketing breastfeeding substitutes. The result of this is to place the lives and health of millions of babies at risk. Nestlé, and companies like them, know that marketing works, or they wouldn’t waste their money on it.

The Empire Strikes Back

Nestlé argue that they ‘market infant formula according to the …WHO Code’. They have responded to the boycott with a p.r. offensive, summarised and critiqued here. Tom Levitt MP has also spoken up in defense of Nestle, arguing that the boycott campaigners have an ‘irrational distrust’ of multinationals (Nestlé paid for a group of MP’s to visit South Africa to investigate alleged violations there.) Distrust yes, irrational no - multinationals got where they were by making money, and if you are on commission for sales then it’s always tempting to bend the rules. It makes perfect sense within the dynamics of multinational capitalism to be vigilant against the corrupting power of the bottom line.

It’s interesting to note that, when campaigners were planning a ‘Nestlé-free week’ from 4th October this year, they had a letter from Nestlés’ lawyers 6 days before it began demanding that the domain name for the main website be handed over to Nestlé. I’m always suspicious when companies wheel the lawyers in (full story here, p18).

They Think It’s All Over

The Nestlé boycott began in 1977 in the USA, and spread across the world. It’s old news, which is probably why none of the mums at our local school seemed to know about it last Christmas. Many folk who used to boycott Nestlé assume that everything is fine now. The Church of England announced a boycott of Nestle in the early 90’s, but in the face of a p.r. blitz by Nestlé over the following years decided not to renew it, despite concluding that Nestlé had still not cleaned up its act. I’m a Church of England vicar who thinks that was a mistake. The Methodist church has taken an alternative strategy - buying shares in Nestlé in order to try to influence policy from within. Not sure about what message that sends.

Spend and Save

The only thing that Nestlé understand, and other companies like them, is money. The thing that will change their practices is a financial hit, and one thing that Western consumers have is spending power, to use, or to withdraw. How you spend controls what happens on the planet. We’ve seen this week how desperate the government is to get you to spend your money, to save the economy. How we spend can save lives too.

So here’s what not to buy, if you want to support the boycott:

Nescafe and all Nescafe brands
Rowntrees products (Nestlé bought the company a few years ago) such as Kit Kat & Lion Bar
Ski Yoghurts
After 8’s
Yorkie
Buxton Mineral Water
Nestle cereals: Shreddies, Cheerios, Golden Grahams etc.
Cosmetics by Garnier, L’Oreal, Lancome, Matrix and others
Winalot and Felix pet foods, among others.

For a fuller list go here. The Nestlé website has its own list.

Other useful sites:

the Boycott Nestle blog,

nestlecritics.org

November update from Baby Milk Action.