Nestlé under fire for marketing claims on baby milk formulas

Exclusive: Report finds Swiss multinational is violating advertising codes and misleading consumers with nutritional claims

Arthur Neslen
Thu 1 Feb 2018 15.00 GMT


A boycott campaign poster against Nestlé baby milk products at the Hay festiva, 2002. Photograph: Kathy deWitt/Alamy Stock Photo

The Swiss multinational Nestlé has been accused of violating ethical marketing codes and manipulating customers with misleading nutritional claims about its baby milk formulas.

A new report by the Changing Markets Foundation has found that Nestlé marketed its infant milk formulas as “closest to”, “inspired by” and “following the example of” human breastmilk in several countries, despite a prohibition by the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO).

The study, which analysed over 70 Nestlé baby milk products in 40 countries, also found that Nestlé often ignored its own nutritional advice in its advertising.

In South Africa, the firm used sucrose in infant milk formulas, while marketing its Brazilian and Hong Kong formulas as being free of sucrose “for baby’s good health”.

In Hong Kong, it promoted its baby milk powders as healthier – because they were free from vanilla flavourings – even as it sold other vanilla-flavoured formulas elsewhere in the territory.

Nusa Urbancic, campaigns director for the Changing Markets Foundation told the Guardian: “We have come to understand that companies manipulate consumers’ emotional responses to sell a variety of products, but this behaviour is especially unethical when it comes to the health of vulnerable babies.

“If the science is clear that an ingredient is safe and beneficial for babies then such ingredients should be in all products. If an ingredient is not healthy, such as sucrose, then it should be in no products. Nestlé’s inconsistency on this point calls into serious question whether it is committed to science, as it professes to be.”

Nestlé is the global market leader for infant milk products with a market share of close to a quarter. It has been dogged by the advertising issue since a 1974 report called The Baby sparked a worldwide boycott.

In 1981, the WHO adopted a strict code of advertising banning the promotion of baby milk products as being in any way comparable to breastmilk. Nestle insists that it follows the code “as implemented by national governments”.

But the new report finds that it touted products in the US such as Gerber Good Start Gentle powder as “our closest to breastmilk”, and sold its Beba Optipro 1 powder in Switzerland as “following the example of breastmilk”.

Similar Nestlé products in Hong Kong and Spain were advertised as being “inspired by human milk”, and having “an identical structure” to breastmilk.

The company did not respond to specific questions about the new study but a Nestlé spokesperson told the Guardian it supported WHO recommendations and believed that breastmilk was, wherever possible, “the ideal source of nutrition for babies.”

However, not all infants could be breastfed as recommended and “where needed or chosen by parents, we offer high quality, innovative, science-based nutritional products for mothers and infants from conception to two years of age,” the employee said. “We market these products in a responsible way at all times, and the claims made on our products are based on sound scientific evidence.”

Some academics, though, have highlighted the way that language used by corporates to promote infant milk formulas can sometimes mislead consumers about this.

Last year, Prof George Kent of the University of Hawaii wrote that describing a product as “closer to breastmilk … is not the same as saying it is close to breastmilk. New York is closer than New Jersey to Paris, but that does not mean New York is close to Paris.”

Breastmilk is a “personalised” and continuously changing nutrition between mother and child that contains live substances – such as antibodies and immune-system related compounds – which cannot yet be replicated in a lab.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/01/nestle-under-fire-for-marketing-claims-on-baby-milk-formulas modified on Thu 1 Feb 2018 22.00 GMT

The Truth About Organic Foods from China

by Dr. Josh Axe on July 1, 2013

There are articles all over the Internet right now about “fake organic” food from China. Wanting to keep you informed, I read through many of them. The problem was, they all seemed to quote other sources and reading on, I found that these sources quoted other sources and so on. There didn’t seem to be any credible first-hand sources for this information. Was this all just rumor run rampant, as Whole Foods claims?

Whole Foods has been accused of selling these “fake organic” foods from China but they claim that “any product sold as organic in the US, regardless of where it’s grown, must be certified to the USDA’s National Organic Program standard by a USDA-accredited certifier.”

Well, I wanted to know more about this USDA certification of imported organics. It took quite a bit of digging but what I eventually found was more disturbing than any of those copycat articles.

I found frightening information about all food from China, frightening lack of regulation concerning organic food from China, and, worst of all, shocking information about our National Organic Program (NOP).



Before I go on, I want to reassure you about your options. You don’t have to break the bank buying all of your foods organic. Read which foods are commonly pesticide-ridden and those that usually aren’t in How to Buy Organic. I’ll tell you about the “beyond organic” movement that has arisen in response to NOP problems. Check out this source here to learn more, What is Beyond Organic?

 

Chinese Food Safety Issues

First of all, I was surprised to learn how much food the US imports from China: China is the third-largest source of food imports according to a 2009 report by the Economic Research Service (ERS). For example, 60 percent of our apple juice and over half of the garlic we use in the US is from China. The ERS claims that food safety is a critical issue with Chinese imports but that “there are no simple solutions to addressing the safety hazards since they appear to occur in many different types of foods at all links in the supply chain.”

Reading through the USDA article “Imports From China and Food Safety Issues” is alarming. The FDA regularly refuses shipments from China because of filth, unsafe additives, veterinary drug residues and mislabeling. Filth violations and unsafe additives are the most common violations in Chinese imports and reading what constitutes “filth” is only recommended to those with strong stomachs.

What this report did make evident is that pollution in China is so prevalent that even more stringent regulation is unlikely to make great improvements in food quality there. The ERS reports that banned agricultural chemicals are still used and even when they’re not–they still exist in the soil and water.

Many farms are in industrial regions where air, water and soil pollution is concentrated, especially in terms of cadmium and lead levels. Animal and human waste spoil the water, many workers don’t have hygiene awareness and fraudulent record-keeping is common.



More information about pollution in China can be found in the Stanford Journal of Internation Law ”Is ‘USDA Organic’ a Seal of Deceit?” by Chenglin Liu (print).

Is “USDA Organic” a Seal of Deceit? covers the pitfalls of USDA Certified Organics Produced in the United States, China and Beyond. This article was originally published in the summer 2011 issue of Stanford Journal of International Law and is available for a fee on many scholarly studies websites. To avoid subscription prices, you can read this article via your local or statewide library. Based upon court cases and the evidence presented in them, this white paper was my most disturbing find.

In terms of pollution, author and law professor Chenglin Liu reports that only five percent of household sewage and 17 percent of industrial sewage in China is properly treated.  A Chinese government study found that 90 percent of Chinese groundwater is polluted. China is the world’s biggest user of chemical fertilizers and one of the largest producers and users of pesticides. Worse of all, Chinese farmers traditionally did use organic methods. When farmlands were socialized in the 1960′s, they were forced to use new farming techniques, fertilizers and pesticides by the Chinese government. After decades of such heavy use of agricultural chemicals, soil quality has decreased to the point that USDA economist Fred Gales claims that it is “almost impossible to grow truly organic food in China.”

 

Organic Certification in China

I also took a look at the 2010 USDA Foreign Agriculture Report, an organic report on China. The authors of this report surmise that because of increasing demand within China and worldwide, within 10 years, China may “become the fourth largest organic market in the world.” They report that food safety issues in China make organics a profitable market. Consumers are willing to pay 300 percent more for organic asparagus, 10 times more for organic beef, and generally, five to 10 times more for all organic vegetables. This kind of profit drives unscrupulous practices.

Organic certification in China is wildly diversified. The Chinese Organic Food Certification Center (COFCC) is supposedly in charge but only certifies about 30 percent of organic products. The rest are certified through third parties, private firms, individual inspectors and international firms. As of 2010, the authors report that there is no agreement between China and the US as what constitutes organic. They also report that organic standards are poorly enforced in China, that no clear authority exists, that mislabeling is common and that many producers use expired organic labels. Some organic companies don’t even produce their own food but subcontract to others. Some companies label their goods as organic when only a tiny portion of their produce is grown organically.

 

Importing Practices

Professor Liu reports that there are three ways that imported foods can be sold as organic in the US. 1) Foods can be certified by a USDA-accredited certifying agent, either US-based or foreign-based; 2) foods may be stamped with the USDA seal if the US has a recognition agreement with that country, an agreement that the country’s own certifying agents can use this seal because they follow US organic regulations; 3) equivalency agreements exist through which the US and other countries agree that their organic standards are equivalent.

We don’t have an equivalency agreement or a recognition agreement with China so technically, Whole Foods is right: organic food from China must be certified by a USDA-accredited certifier. But here’s the rub. There aren’t enough US certifiers to go around, only about 94 exist. The USDA certifies agents in China to certify farms and other producers. In 2007, an audit of two farms and four certifiers in China found many issues of noncompliance. For example, the certifiers had little experience with organic certification stipulations, often didn’t even understand them, and in once case, a German-based certifying company in China didn’t even provide the NOP organic standards to applying agents.

Also in 2007, the USDA realized that the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) had been using employees from the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection. It would be in their best interest to push organic certification no matter what actual practices were taking place. The OCIA certifies 1800 organic operations in 11 countries, 233 in China. It took three years for the USDA to take action and suspend OCIA for one year, and they didn’t tell the American public until 2010.

Professor Liu finds Whole Food’s rebuttal ridiculous because it claims equivalency in organic standards and certification whether the food is from US or beyond. Liu points out that in one instance, the USDA granted conditional accreditations to certifiers based only on paperwork and didn’t check to see that they complied with conditions set forth for seven years.  NOP regulations only stipulate a once-yearly check on farms and Liu reports that China’s government agencies can’t even enforce their own laws, never mind that of the US.

 

Corruption in China

Why did China keep having problems with tainted milk and products made with this milk? Because local governments cover up such scandals as a matter of course. These local governments are closely tied to food manufacturers and it is in their best interest economically to boost manufacturing any way they can. The court system also has ties with food manufacturers reports Liu, and the news media is controlled by the Chinese government. Bribes for licenses are common and ethics aren’t very strong in the food industry in China. The use of additives to enhance look and taste, for instance, rule over health concerns.

Farmers in China don’t voluntarily choose to grow organic: they’re ordered to. Village leaders are in charge of farm cooperatives and are the gatekeepers for USDA certifying agents. An agent might be shown a sampling of organic farming rather than all the practices within the cooperative and many farmers reported that that didn’t know what organic meant or what they were supposed to do. Local officials commonly disrupt, delay or circumvent certifier’s tours of these farms.

Fraudulent labeling is very common in Chinese food manufacturing and because so many departments and agencies are involved in this chain, there are plenty of ways to duck under the radar. For two years, Jiahe products were carried on Carrefour, Wal-Mart and other grocery chain shelves even though they weren’t verified to be free of pesticides.

In terms of corruption, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines and Thailand all rank worse than China. Yet these countries are the top ten suppliers of fruits and vegetables to the US reports Liu.  Growing demand for organic food drives imports. Liu reports that 40 percent of the organic food consumed in the US is imported from over 100 other countries.

 

Fake Organic in the US?

Then there’s the National Organic Program. The US certainly isn’t immune to corruption. The NOP was instituted because small farmers thought regulation would protect them. Instead, as the organic industry has been co-opted by mega-corporations, loopholes in organic standards and regulations become cavernous.

Those small farms? They’ve been gobbled up by big business and organic practices become industrial organic practices. Kellogg now owns Bear Naked and Kashi, Heinz and Hein own 19 organic brands. Coca-Cola, Con-Agra, General Mills, Kraft, and Mars M&M own most of the market. Michael Pollan reports that “five giant farms control fully one-half of the $400 million organic produce market in California.” To see who owns your favorite organic brand, check out this info graphic,  Organic Sells Out to Mega Corporations.

The truth is, there is no perfect standard.  But in general, organic foods are typically of higher quality than conventional.  Even then, I would recommend not buying foods from China whether it’s organic or not.  Support companies who are willing to show you there production methods and be completely transparent like Beyond Organic.  I also recommend shopping at your local farmers market and asking them how they produce their foods.  Buying local or from a single owned organic company is your safest bet when buying any foods including organic.

 

Lessons Learned

• Chinese imports are a common part of US food supply.
• Environmental pollution in China makes any food grown there hazardous or nutrient-deplete.
• Organic regulation of Chinese foods is a joke.
• Corruption is common in many of the countries that contribute to US food sources, organic and otherwise.
• Organic regulation in the US has been severely compromised by corporate interests.
• It’s better to know the person that provides your food than rely on organic certifications.

 Sources

Peoples Republic of China: Organics Report, October 26, 2010

“Is “USDA Organic” a Seal of deceit? The Pitfalls of USDA Certified Organics Produced in the United States, China and Beyond.

USDA.gov – Imports From China and Food Safety Issues
The Organic Watergate—White Paper: Connecting the Dots: Corporate Influence at the USDA’s National Organic Program
www.nytimes.com Michael Pollan: Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex

http://www.draxe.com/organic-foods-china-shocking-and-exposed/

NZ dairy giant issues global botulism alert

Posted on 3 August 2013 - 04:12pm
Last updated on 4 August 2013 - 10:36am

WELLINGTON (Aug 3, 2013): New Zealand warned international health authorities Saturday of exported dairy products, including infant formula, containing a bacteria that could lead to botulism -- a potentially fatal illness.

The government said the contaminated whey protein concentrate, or products using this ingredient, had been exported to Australia, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Dairy giant Fonterra, which manufactured the product more than a year ago, said eight customers had been advised and were investigating whether any of the affected product was in their supply chains.

If necessary, contaminated consumer products would be recalled, the company said in a statement.

There have been no reports of any illness linked to consumption of the affected whey protein.

New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser said health authorities around the world, including the World Health Organization, had also been alerted to the contamination.

"As soon as New Zealand authorities were notified of this risk, we immediately acted to inform relevant authorities around the world," Groser said.

"This has included formally notifying Infosan, the World Health Organization's international food safety regulators network. As more information on this issue is confirmed we will provide our trading partners with further updates.

"We understand that the markets to which contaminated whey protein concentrate, or products using this ingredient, has been exported are Australia, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam."

Fonterra said the affected product was used in a range of drinks including infant formula and sports drinks.

"We are doing everything we can to assist our customers in ensuring any product containing this ingredient is removed from the marketplace and that the public is made aware," Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings said.

Three batches of whey protein concentrate manufactured in May last year recently tested positive for Clostridium botulinum.

The batches have been used to form 870 tonnes of products sold in a variety of markets, the Ministry for Primary Industries' Acting Director General Scott Gallacher said.

The symptoms of botulism include nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, followed by paralysis, and it can be fatal if not treated.

Fonterra said the potential impact on someone consuming a contaminated product would depend on their age and the amount they consumed.

For an adult, a small amount of contaminated whey protein "would probably pass through unnoticed", Fonterra's managing director of New Zealand milk products, Gary Romano, told reporters.

Dairy exports are New Zealand's major earner and its products are particularly popular in Asia, where they are considered the gold standard.

According to government data the dairy industry contributes 2.8 percent to New Zealand's GDP and about 25 percent of its exports. It is worth NZ$10.4 billion (US$8.1 billion) annually.

New Zealand accounts for one-third of the world's cross-border trade in dairy products.

Fonterra, the world's largest dairy exporter, reported revenues of NZ$19.8 billion ($15.5 billion) in the 2012 financial year. – AFP

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/788025

NZ struggling to complete tainted milk recall

Posted on 7 August 2013 - 09:40am
Last updated on 7 August 2013 - 10:43am

WELLINGTON (Aug 7, 2013): New Zealand was struggling to meet a self-imposed deadline to remove tainted baby formula from shelves worldwide Wednesday and end a botulism scare that has triggered global recalls.

Both the government and dairy giant Fonterra said earlier this week they hoped to ensure the last of the contaminated formula was out of circulation by late Wednesday, but ministers have since warned they can offer no guarantees.

About 90 percent of the product, which was distributed from China to Saudi Arabia, has been collected and Trade Minister Tim Groser said officials were combing Fonterra's records to find the rest.

"It's a question of working through by a process of elimination to find where the last remaining can is... it's really unfortunate, it's just taking time," he told TV3 on Wednesday.

Economic Development Minister Stephen Joyce said the formula had been cleared from New Zealand stores but "internationally there's still some that's being verified, exactly where it is".

"There will be some that's been effectively sold to end users and may or may not be returned," he said on Radio New Zealand.

Joyce acknowledged the botulism scare has dented New Zealand's "clean, green" reputation, particularly in China, where Fonterra has used the country's premium reputation to create a multi-billion dollar dairy market.

"I've read some interesting comments in the last 24 hours, people saying it's not as big as you think, well I beg to differ, it's very significant," he said.

In an editorial that was reportedly widely published in Chinese media, state news agency Xinhua blamed lax regulations in New Zealand for allowing the product to be exported.

It also raised concerns the problems were systemic, pointing to Fonterra's involvement with a Chinese company it part-owned that in 2008 illegally laced milk with the chemical melamine, resulting in six children dying and 300,000 falling sick.

There have been no reports of illness in the latest scare but Groser said such sentiments in one of New Zealand's major export markets were "not pretty".

"I have a very firm view that this is not going to be won by a slick PR campaign," he said.

"The number one thing is to fix the immediate problem. That will determine our real ability to recover our position." – AFP

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/791164

NZ milk powder contaminated with bacteria

Posted on 5 August 2013 - 09:55am
Last updated on 5 August 2013 - 12:25pm

WELLINGTON (Aug 5, 2013): New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Monday accused dairy giant Fonterra of delaying in sounding the alarm over products tainted with a potentially fatal bug, as investors sent the company's shares tumbling.

Fonterra revealed on Saturday that a whey product used to make infant formula and sports drinks had been contaminated with a bacteria that can cause botulism, prompting immediate action from China, a major market for New Zealand's dairy products.

Key said he was concerned at the impact on farm-reliant New Zealand's reputation as a supplier of "clean, green" dairy products, particularly in Asia where its infant formula has long been regarded as gold standard.

He said it was difficult to understand why Fonterra did not act immediately when tests last year showed there were problems with three batches of whey.

"I'm a bit staggered that in May of 2012, when this whey was produced, that it (Fonterra) did show something in its testing, but clearly not something that was of concern to the company because they allowed it to go out," he told Radio New Zealand.

"You would have thought that for a business where its top business is essentially based around consumer confidence, food safety and the quality of its products, that they are risks that you wouldn't take."

He said the government had a team of more than 60 personnel working to contain the fallout from the contamination and would eventually seek a "forensic" examination of how Fonterra had handled the crisis.

The Fonterra Shareholders' Fund fell 8.7 percent at the open on the New Zealand stock exchange as investors had their first chance to react to the scare, later recovering slightly to be down 5.9 percent at NZ$6.70 around midday.

The countries that the contaminated whey was exported to include Australia, China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam.

New Zealand officials say China has blocked all imports of its milk powder, while there are also reports that Russia has recalled Fonterra products and advised customers not to buy them.

Fonterra said there had been no reports of illness linked to consumption of the tainted product, which contains the bacteria Clostridium bolulinium, which can cause botulism, an infection that can lead to paralysis and death if left untreated.

The company has blamed the contamination on a dirty pipe at a North Island processing plant.

The New Zealand Infant Formula Exporters Association said none of the products made by its members were affected but it had been caught in a global backlash due to the poor quality of information being released by Fonterra.

"There wasn't full and frank disclosure right at the beginning and this has led to a lot of rumours spreading in the marketplace, which is what we're seeking to counter now," spokesman Chris Claridge told TVNZ.

New Zealand is the world's largest dairy exporter and the NZ$10.4 billion ($8.1 billion) sector accounts for about 25 percent of its exports. – AFP

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/788944

Tainted milk powder recalled

Posted on 4 August 2013 - 10:08pm
Last updated on 5 August 2013 - 08:05am

Dorothy Cheng

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 4, 2013): Selected batches of Dumex, Mamex and Bebelac milk powder products were recalled today by local distributor Danone Dumex (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd after a global recall warning by New Zealand-based Fonterra dairy company that an ingredient used in the products may cause botulism food poisoning.

Danone Dumex, in a statement today, said Fonterra informed the company that one of their ingredients had a potential quality issue.

"The safety of our consumers is our primary concern. Danone Dumex's quality and food safety management system includes rigorous testing procedures of our finished products. None of the products tested and sold in Malaysia indicate any contamination.

"However, given the new information supplied by Fonterra, we have taken the decision to make a precautionary recall on 34 batches of products," it said.

The New Zealand authorities had on Saturday issued a warning on whey protein concentrate (WPC) products manufactured by Fonterra as they were suspected to be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, which can cause food poisoning.

WPC is an ingredient in infant formula, growing-up milk powder and sports drinks. It was reported these products are exported from New Zealand to several countries including Malaysia.

This new information indicated that some of the ingredients supplied to Danone Dumex may also have been contaminated. For this reason, Danone Dumex has instigated a precautionary recall in Malaysia.

"Consumers should not feed products with these batch numbers to infants. If you have been using these products to feed your infant and your child shows any sign of illness, please contact your health care professional as a precautionary measure," the company said.

The recall does not include other batches of the same products and other Danone Dumex products.

Consumers who have recently purchased any products with the relevant batch numbers have been advised to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.

According to Danone Dumex, retailers have been informed and recalls are underway.

Further information can be obtained from the Dumex Careline at 1 800 38 1038.

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/788771

Cesium found in milk powder made by Japan's Meiji

 

Reuters – 6 hrs ago

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Meiji Holdings said on Tuesday that radioactive cesium was found in infant milk powder made by the food and dairy firm, in the latest food scare to grip the country nearly nine months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Meiji said it was recalling 400,000 cans of the infant formula, which is sold only in Japan.

Worries over the safety of food supplies have shaken the public after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the worst nuclear accident in 25 years, spreading radiation over a large swathe of northern and eastern Japan.

Cases of excessive radiation in vegetables, tea, milk, seafood and water have stoked anxiety despite assurance from public officials that the levels detected are not dangerous.

Meiji said it is unsure exactly how the cesium got into the powdered milk, but it suspects radioactive substances emitted from the Fukushima accident may have been the source. A company spokesman told Reuters hot air used in the drying process may have contained cesium.

Tests by Meiji showed that up to 30.8 becquerels (a unit of radioactivity) of cesium was found per kilogram of the powdered milk. That is below the government-set permissible limit, but the firm will nevertheless conduct a voluntary recall of the product, called "Meiji Step."

The limit set by Japan's health ministry is 200 becquerels per kilogram for powdered milk, an official at the ministry's department of food safety said.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the operator of the Fukushima plant, has made slow but steady progress in bringing the facility under control, curbing the amount of radiation emitted from its reactors and reducing temperatures of the water, cooling them to levels considered stable.

It is on track to declare a "cold shutdown" -- when water used to cool the reactors is stable below boiling point -- before the end of the year.

Tepco said this week about 45 tons of contaminated water had leaked from a system that cleans radiated water, of which the utility said 300 liters escaped outside. But trade and energy minister Yukio Edano told reporters on Tuesday that the leak would not affect the goal of achieving a cold shutdown before the year's end.

http://news.yahoo.com/cesium-found-milk-powder-made-japans-meiji-201606002.html
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