Nestle Boycott (and others): What They Did & Why They Are Boycotted Globally
Here is a list of commonly avoided/boycotted brands and products, with information on why they are being boycotted.
Nestle
See the BabyMilkAction.org site which has loads of information and their FAQ page about the boycott.
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Nestle is targeted with the boycott because monitoring conducted by the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) finds it to be responsible for more violations of the World Health Assembly marketing requirements for baby foods than any other company (see the codewatch section for profiles of the different companies to target their malpractice).
As UNICEF has said:
"Marketing practices that undermine breastfeeding are potentially hazardous wherever they are pursued: in the developing world, WHO estimates that some 1.5 million children die each year because they are not adequately breastfed. These facts are not in dispute."
A list of corporate crimes by Nestle, including:
- Unethical Marketing of Artificial Baby Milk
- Exploiting Farmers
- Union Busting
- Promotion of GM Food
- The Ethiopia scandal
- Illegal extraction of groundwater
- Pollution
- Pyres of Burning Animals
- Fraudulent Labeling
- Perpetuating Sexism
- Promoting unhealthy food
- Promoting untested nano-technology
- Backlashing against Fairtrade
:
Ethiopia scandal: "Just before Christmas 2002, Oxfam revealed that Nestlé was demanding millions of dollars in compensation from Ethiopia – precisely when the country was in the midst of an extreme drought that put over 11 million people at risk for starvation."
You can see an article about that here: Nestle claims £3.7m from famine-hit Ethiopia
What's Wrong With Nestlé?
Check out THIS page to see a shocking clip on Palm Oil (which Nestle uses in it's products and had pulled from FB) and what it's doing to decimate Orangutan habitats.
Irresponsible marketing
Nestlé holds about 50% of the world's breast milk substitute market and is being boycotted for continued breaches of the 1981 WHO Code regulating the marketing of breast milk substitutes.
Nestlé encourages bottle feeding primarily by either giving away free samples of baby milk to hospitals, or neglecting to collect payments. It has been criticised for misinforming mothers and health workers in promotional literature. Nestlé implies that malnourished mothers, and mothers of twins and premature babies are unable to breastfeed, despite health organisations claims that there is no evidence to support this.
Evidence of direct advertising to mothers has been found in over twenty countries such as South Africa and Thailand. Instructions and health warnings on packaging are often either absent, not prominently displayed or in an inappropriate language. All of these actions directly contravene the Code regulating the marketing of baby milk formulas.
Even in the UK, bottle-fed babies are up to ten times more likely to develop gastro intestinal infections, but in the Third World, where clean water may be absent, mothers may be illiterate and independent health care and advice may be lacking, bottle feeding can be more dangerous. This can lead to a situation where bavies are left vulnerable to dysentery, malnutrition and death, and Nestle is able to retain its estimated $4 billion market share in the baby-milk industry.
[Baby Milk Action, Action Pack, March 1993] [Breaking the Rules (IBFAN 1991)] [State of the Code by Company (IOCU 1991)] [Baby Milk Action, Newsletter Summer 1989] [Baby Milk Action Update, July 1992, November 1991, September 1991]]
Exploiting employees
In 1989 workers at a Nestlé chocolate plant in Cacapava, Brazil went on strike. The wprkers compained of poor working conditions, including discrimination against women, lack of protective clothing and inadequate safety condition. Within two months of the beginning of the stike the company had sacked forty of its workers, including most of the strike organisers.
[The Global Consumer - Phil Wells & Mandy Jetter (New Consumer/Gollancz 1991)]
Supporting brutal / repressive regimes
Nestlé has subsidiaries in Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka and Turkey. The company also has subsidaries in South Africa which it owned during the Apartheid year. L'Oréal adds Peru and Morocco to the list.
[Who Owns Who 1992, D&B]
Abusing animals
Nestlé own nearly 50% of the cosmetics company L'Oreal. L'Oreal was subject to boycott calls from animal rights groups including PeTA because of its animal testing policy. Since then L'Oreal has claimed that it no longer tests finished products on animals. This statement is obviously intended to mislead since finished products do not require further testing and it implies that the ingredients are certainly still subject to tests. Some groups called off the boycott in response to L'Oreals' claims, however there are individuals and organisations who continue the boycott and L'Oreal continues to test on animals.
Nestléitself manufactures products containing meat and has been critised by BUAV for testing its coffee's carcinogenicity on mice.
[Liberator, Summer 1991]
Credits and References: Most of the information in this section was taken from The Ethical Consumer Guide to Everyday Shopping published by the Ethical Consumer Research Association.
