That’s right, in 2020 we’re calling out corporations instead of people. For anyone who doesn’t follow me, I have a tag ‘corporate crime highlight reel’ for all the best capitalism has to offer regarding profit-motivated crimes against humanity. There are some articles about Nestle in the tag, but I have yet to make a full post on it.
WHY NESTLE IS PROBLEMATIC
1. Has not yet stated an opinion on Steven’s University and 2. is perhaps the personification of everything wrong with capitalism and corporate greed. Let’s go!
1. Nestle’s infant formula scandal (SOURCE, SOURCE)
How does an industry go about creating consumers? There are clear rules:
• create a need where none existed
• convince consumers that your products are indispensable for the ‘good life’
• link products with the most desirable and unattainable concepts; and then give a sample… free.
Knowing that fear and anxiety can actually stop lactation, companies consciously design marketing strategies that aggravate in-built worries and interfere with the pyschophysiology of the human body in order to sell more of their products. In Africa, Nestle’s Lactogen was advertised for use ‘when breast milk fails’. And in the 1950’s a radio jingle for Borden KLIM in the Belgian Congo went like this:
The child is going to die
Because the mother’s breast has given out
Mama o Mama the child cries
If you want your child to get well
Give it KLIM milk
This is perhaps one of Nestle’s most infamous scandals, in which the company used manipulative marketing and exploited the conditions of third world mothers to sell addictive infant formula that leads to, according to the World Health Organization, “underfeeding, malnutrition, and vulnerability to infection”. It was also sometimes lethal. Large outrage surrounding Nestle’s role in the issue started in the 1970s, but as mentioned above, Nestle had been doing this decades earlier.
Here, one mother recounts a Nestlé “milk nurse's” sales pitch:
“The nurse began by saying … breastfeeding was best. She then went on detail the supplementary foods that the breastfed baby would need … The nurse was implying that it was possible to start with a proprietary baby milk from birth, which would avoid these unnecessary problems.”
In the Times, United States Agency for International Development official, Dr. Stephen Joseph, blamed reliance on baby formula for a million infant deaths every year through malnutrition and diarrheal diseases. It also hindered infant growth in general, said War on Want. Citing “complex links emerging between breast feeding and emotional and physical development,” the group said breastfed children walked “significantly better than bottle-fed” kids, and were more emotionally advanced.
Boycotts against Nestle spread from the U.S. to the world, with many mothers refusing to buy Nestle products as a result of the deaths caused by the company.
2. Nestle makes billions bottling water it pays nearly nothing for (SOURCE)
I’ve long been critical of bottled water in general, mainly because it is a terrible result of capitalism’s tendency to commodify and profit from natural resources at the expense of people’s health and lives, and Nestle is no stranger to the problem as a massive manufacturer of bottled water.
Nestle has come to dominate a controversial industry, spring by spring, often going into economically depressed municipalities with the promise of jobs and new infrastructure in exchange for tax breaks and access to a resource that’s scarce for millions. Where Nestlé encounters grass-roots resistance against its industrial-strength guzzling, it deploys lawyers; where it’s welcome, it can push the limits of that hospitality, sometimes with the acquiescence of state and local governments that are too cash-strapped or inept to say no.
There’s also the issue of scarcity. The United Nations expects that 1.8 billion people will live in places with dire water shortages by 2025, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under stressed water conditions.
Failing infrastructure has already led to a near-total reliance on bottled water in parts of the world. Nestlé started selling Pure Life in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1998 to “provide a safe, quality water solution,” the company says. But locals wonder if the Swiss multinational is exacerbating the problem. “Twenty years ago, you could go anywhere in Lahore and get a glass of clean tap water for free,” says Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer in the country. “Now, everyone drinks bottled water.” He adds that this change has taken the pressure off the government to fix its utilities, degrading the quality of Lahore’s supply: “What Nestlé did is use a good marketing scheme to make tap water uncool and dangerous. It’s ubiquitous, like Kleenex. People will say, ‘Give me a bottle of Nestlé.’ ”
Nestle’s former CEO, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, caused outrage in his argument for the commodification of water; “One perspective held by various NGOs—which I would call extreme—is that water should be declared a human right. … The other view is that water is a grocery product. And just as every other product, it should have a market value.” This statement, seemingly coming from a super-villain, is unfortunately just the logical conclusion of capitalism, and Nestle made the mistake of saying it out loud. Dodging regulations and lobbying governments, Nestle’s commodification of this natural resource necessary for survival has been a growing and seemingly unstoppable success.
In the U.S., Nestlé tends to set up shop in areas with weak water regulations or lobbies to enfeeble laws.
3. Nestle’s pollution (SOURCE)
Yes, the company supposedly saving the world with clean water is responsible for a lot of pollution.
As with any “respectable” large company, Nestle has been involved in several incidents regarding pollution. A 1997 report found that in the UK, over a 12 month period, water pollution limits were breached 2,152 times in 830 locations by companies that included Cabdury and Nestle. But again, the situation in China was much worse.
Nestle Sources Shanghai Ltd’s bottled water manufacturing plant also made the list for starting operation before its wastewater treatment facilities had passed an environmental impact assessment.
“These are only some of the water pollution violations committed by multinational companies in China, since our website has yet to cover information about air and solid waste pollution,” said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs. “The parent companies in their home countries are models for environmental protection. But they have slackened their efforts in China.”
This is yet another example of Nestle evading regulations and exploiting resources for profit. In fact, this particular example ties into pollution outsourcing, which is a result of economic imperialism under capitalism.
4. Use of child slave labor and human trafficking (SOURCE)
Like many other similar corporations, Nestle knowingly makes use of child slave labor in its supply chains in Africa. For decades, ex-slaves have been speaking out against the company’s practices.
“The allegations paint a picture of overseas slave labor that defendants perpetuated from headquarters in the United States,” the San Francisco-based appeals court said. The case, filed by six former slaves who were kidnapped from their native Mali, has been moving up and down the federal court system since 2005. The companies are accused of aiding and abetting slave labor by giving Ivory Coast farmers financial assistance in the expectation that cocoa prices would stay low. The suit alleges the companies were fully aware that child slavery was being used.
The ex-slaves say children were forced to work as much as 14 hours a day, given only scraps to eat, and were severely beaten or tortured if they tried to escape.
Combined, Ivory Coast and Ghana produce almost 60% of the world’s cocoa, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of International Affairs. “Latest estimates found 2 million children engaged in hazardous work on cocoa farms in these two countries,” the bureau says on its website.
FUN BONUS: Nestle’s PR contacted me on twitter regarding the company’s use of child labor and dismissal of lawsuits.
