Having the courage of your convictions, or not
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Earlier this year there was a wave of indignation at Kraft for their decision to close the chocolate factory at Keynsham (a place I know from my youth, having travelled past it daily on my bus journey to work, and even got to visit with the college once – that was a treat).
There were calls at the time to boycott Cadbury chocolate – which of course was not going to happen during Creme Egg season! And anyway, it seemed that Kraft were perhaps trying to run a business in the best way they could.
On Twitter I happened to mention that perhaps if those boycotting Nestle were not making much difference to their approaches to far more important issues, a boycott of Kraft would perhaps be as meaningless. This upset a number of people, especially those who do boycott Nestle – and I regret that my comment was taken that way as it was far from the intention. So – the idea of this blog post arose.
I was reminded over the Easter weekend when my boy won a large KitKat Easter egg at school! Now we have two Nestle mugs in the house. And in my preparation to explain to him why I tend to boycott* Nestle products I figured it was time to really look at how thorough my own “boycott” really was…
And goodness, it does take some monitoring, that’s for sure – I’ve certainly been slipping for a while. But do you know what, busy as I am, I firmly disapprove of what Nestle have done and do – they do not hold their hands up and feel shame at their practices, from what I can see (and I base my research on both the wealth of information from both sides of the story, centred with the WHO reports and findings).
The full list of Nestle products and those that they profit from are http://info.babymilkaction.org/nestleboycottlist, and include the obvious branded confectionery, cereals and coffees, as well as the less expected pet foods (Felix, Winalot, Bonio, and more) and of course cosmetics – Maybelline, Garnier, Lancome, L’Oreal (are we really worth it?) and so my favourite Body Shop, sadly.
So, just what have Nestle done that’s so bad?
From the Baby Milk Action’s website:
Nestlé is the target of a boycott because it contributes to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants around the world by aggressively marketing baby foods in breach of international marketing standards. Even Nestlé’s Public Affairs Manager acknowledges the boycott has widespread support.
The World Health Assembly has adopted marketing requirements for baby foods to protect breastfeeding and to ensure breastmilk substitutes are used safely if necessary. As UNICEF has said:
“Marketing practices that undermine breastfeeding are potentially hazardous wherever they are pursued: in the developing world, WHO estimates that some 1.5 million children die each year because they are not adequately breastfed. These facts are not in dispute.”
Although Nestlé does dispute the facts. See the Your Questions Answered section for responses to Nestlé’s denials and deception. The boycott will continue until Nestlé accepts and complies with Baby Milk Action’s four-point plan for saving infant lives and ultimately ending the boycott.
Nestlé is singled out for boycott action as monitoring shows it to be responsible for more violations of the requirements than any other company. The boycott helps to stop some of the specific cases of malpractice we expose and has forced some changes in policy. But Nestlé continues systematic violations in those countries which have not yet brought in independently monitored and enforced legislation implementing the marketing requirements, which is another part of our strategy for protecting infant health and mothers’ rights.
Now of course that is one side of the “argument”. From Nestle’s point of view, well reading their WHO code of marketing would suggest, certainly to me, that they’re following the rules. So next to have a look for WHO’s take on it all – and I failed miserably on finding anything there, I’m sorry to say.
And as someone who is strongly averse to extremist approaches to pretty much any cause, I approve of the calm approach of the Baby Milk Action site, outlining their position rather than ranting.
What I want to know is how boycotting Nestle actually helps those we are professing to “protect” by our actions – does it make a difference? From what I can work out, Nestle have not changed their approaches and are still the subject of the boycott.
Back to my original point (at last) – if we do boycott a brand we want to be thorough about it, to spend the time on knowing what products are included – and that is not as easy as we might think when we say “I’m boycotting Kraft and Cadbury’s”. Combining such with Nestle we’d have to go back to eating locally produced foodstuffs and the like – now there’s a thought 
*Following my research for this I found that the Body Shop is now owned by L’Oreal – which is part-owned by Nestle! So my boycott is not active just now until I find an alternative – I am not happy about this, but a part boycott is pointless, surely.
