No big company runs without controversy and hate. But the case with Nestle is a different scenario. Nestle is known for its controversies and unethical practices. It is considered to be one of the biggest companies in the world, with hundreds of products sold all around the globe. You would identify Nestle with packaged food ranges, but it is famous for its dreadful track record in baby food formula. Nestle is a Swiss multinational food and beverage company, which produces baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee & tea, pet foods, frozen foods, dairy products and much more. Twenty-nine of these companies have sales of over $1 billion a year and have over 8,000 brands. Nestle has over 447 factories across 194 countries and employs around 333,000 people. Now you will be convinced when we say, Nestle is one of the biggest companies in the world. But as big as its size and net worth is, it isn’t the same case with reputation and ethics.
In the 1970s, Nestle expanded its baby formula market to less economically developed countries, targeting the poor population. The company began to advertise its baby formula as superior to breast milk, which is unethical for many reasons. They attempted and succeeded in manipulating the customers into believing that their baby formula was more beneficial for infants than breastfeeding. They even have a track record of bribing medical specialists to approve this on their behalf. They ran ad campaigns encouraging mothers to replace breast milk with their baby formula. Nestle even hired ‘saleswomen’ across the developing regions of Asia and Africa, to give medical advice to mothers and hand them a free sample of baby formula. The company strategically weighed the baby formula in a way that would only last up to the day when mothers get dependent on the formula and stop lactating. This horrible PR stunt led to the death of infants, due to malnutrition. Something even worse was that the mothers in the poor households started to dilute the formula with more water, to make it cost-effective. By doing this they were unknowingly starving the children and making them weak. Due to malnutrition and no access to clean water, many infants died of diseases. This tragedy was even named “Baby Killer” by the media.
Nestle is one of the leading producers of packaged water bottles. They are produced with single-use plastic, leading to the pollution of the sea. A study also found that most of the land and water waste was the plastic bottles produced by Nestle. We all know that plastic bottles cause damage to our environment, but even the water inside the bottle was causing damage to the environment. Nestle was deriving the water from the ground and is blamed for exploiting the groundwater of the areas that need it the most and seeing it for their profit. Nestle is also accused of taking the water sources of the countries, where people are forced to drink dirty water as their clean water source is acquired by Nestle.
Nestle is known for selling a wide range of chocolate goods made from cocoa obtained by child labour. During the 2000s, Nestle was accused of using child labour to produce cocoa for their chocolates. On the accusation, the company claimed that most of the unpaid child labour was working on their parents’ farms. They gave the reasoning that the farmers cannot afford school fees and need all the working hands possible to afford food, shelter and other necessities. However, this reasoning is absurd and was ruled out, as scarcity cannot be the reason for child trafficking and child labour.
With all these allegations, it’s not a big deal to call the company evil. Businesses are meant for making a profit, but at what cost is the big question that entrepreneurs have to ask themselves. We still use Nestle products in our day-to-day life, Maggie is something that deep within us know isn’t good for our health. Still, we consume them because we are used to their comfort and nostalgia. It is high time you and I make a difference, by letting such companies know, what we are here to accept and what not.
Aishwarya_writes 