By Tracy Sorensen
The international anti-Nestle boycott campaign is back. The first campaign, which ran from the early '70s until 1984, was one of the most successful and well known of its kind, bringing to the world's attention the company's deadly infant-formula marketing practices in the Third World.
Nestle's marketing pitch bombarded women with radio jingles, giant billboards showing happy babies clutching tins of formula and saleswomen in nurses' uniforms (known as "milk nurses"), giving the impression of medical endorsement as they distributed free samples.
Used appropriately, infant milk formula can be a useful adjunct or replacement for breast milk. Until work and study places are redesigned around the needs of breastfeeding women, they can help broaden women's choices. Among the relatively advantaged of the world, these considerations can be weighed against the natural superiority of breast milk.
But in Third World settings, without access to clean running water and adequate sterilising facilities, opting for formula over breast milk can be a matter of life or death.
United Nations officials estimate that every day, some 3000 to 4000 infants die because they are denied access to adequate breast milk; each year, 1.5 million babies die from unsafe bottle-feeding.
As Victoria's Baby Food Action Group points out, Nestle has reaped the benefits of being the first into huge markets around the world: as early as 1873, the company was selling "Nestle's Milk Food" in Europe, the USA, Latin America and the East Indies. Over 125 years later, it is still the market leader, with a 50% share of the $6 billion a year baby milk business.
In 1984, after years of hedging and legal suits, the Nestle company signed an agreement with the International Nestle Boycott Committee, in which it promised to abide by a UN code regulating milk formula marketing practices. The company agreed to accept the World Health Organisation's decision in any dispute over interpretation. The boycott of Nestle products was lifted.
The International Baby Food Action Network, a loose coalition of campaign groups, continued to monitor the behaviour of Nestle and other multinational infant formula companies.
By 1988, it was clear that Nestle had broken the spirit of the UN code, if not the letter. It was continuing to shore up markets using highly unethical means: through free samples, and funding nurseries in hospitals.
Practices in hospitals in the days after the birth of a child are crucial to whether or not a baby will be bottle- or breastfed. If a breastfeeding routine is not established, and if the child has been started on formula, the mother's milk-producing capacity and ding may be hampered.
If the baby is bottle-fed by nurses, and if the woman is handed a free sample on leaving hospital, a cycle of dependence on formula is highly likely. This is what the Nestle company continues to bank on. The "milk nurses" may have gone, but the essential strategy remains intact.
In Australia, the Baby Food Action Group is urging a renewed boycott of the company's most recognised brand: Nescafe coffee. For more information, contact (03) 419 7111.