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Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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But why? It is bad for babies OK, but what is the upside for Nestlé? Is it addiction?
One of Nestle's main evil plans in the Low Income Countries is to aggressively tell mothers that formula is better than breastfeeding, have doctors suggest it, or even give free formula until the mothers' breastmilk dries up.
Humans evolved to crave sugar which is scarce in nature.
Babies will naturally prefer milk with higher sweetness i.e Nestle Cerelac. This will help convince the mothers to breastfeed less, buy more formula, and/or let their milk dry up.
Edit: here's UNICEF on these evil marketing practices in Bangladesh.
Why do they do this in specifically lower-income countries, where there is less money to be made for them? That's the part that confuses me.
There's less regulation in a developing country. So... if you get them hooked on it then, at least, you've got easy (albeit low) income. During the developing country maturity they will then be hooked on sugar and less likely to ban it or curb it.
It's just as any addiction.
Ah, regulations, that's what I was missing. That sucks.
It’s also not an exclusive situation: that is, selling to the Global South doesn’t in any way impede or prevent their sales in developed nations. It’s just an extra source of income. Sure, they’re making less money per unit sold, but less extra money is better than no extra money. Aggressively marketing to these countries also helps prevent local companies from creating their own competitive products, which protects Nestle’s global dominance interests.
Suffice to say that the list of reasons they would want to do this is long while the list against is very short.