The controversial case of Nestle and sugar in baby foods-
Vijay Balakrishnan
Independent Director| Board Member | C- Level Executive | Thought Leader | Marketing Transformation | Change Management | Ex Tata Consumer Products, Tata Tetley, Airtel, Docomo, Ujjivan and Cambridge International
For Nestlé, are not all babies equal?
?Two cases that rocked India’s FMCG industry, causing immeasurable brand and equity damage, have been the Cadbury Worm in chocolates and Nestle’s Maggi lead content controversies.
?Now comes a significant announcement and expose: Nestle adds sugar to infant milk powder sold in developing and poorer countries (including one of its biggest markets, India) but NOT in first-world and main markets like Europe and the UK.
Nestle’s revenue market share for baby food in India is estimated to be over 2000 crores, which is very significant.
?Public Eye (a Swiss investigative organization) and an industry body (IBFAN) claim samples from Asia, Africa, and Latin America were tested in a Belgian lab, confirming sugar findings. The findings indicated that Thai samples had a sugar content of 6 grams, Ethiopia—5.2 grams, and South Africa—4 grams, while the Indian tested with 2.2 grams of sugar per serving. In the UK and Europe, this is ZERO.
?Surprisingly, Nestle mentions on its website the need to avoid any form of sugar when preparing baby food, so this discovery could become a big issue in the coming days.
The category is infants and mothers, so this could easily snowball for the company, leading to recalls and brand protection protocols. It will be interesting to track this development and see how Nestle handles this on what could be a bigger can of worms if not handled well. The fact that the company has ensured the highest level of compliance with zero sugar in the UK and European markets but ignored food safety conditions in other markets will make it difficult to defend and escape unscathed.
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