Please don't buy Nestle Pete

Helpful information about Nestle for Pete, my favourite brother

Susie

I am afraid that I am about to abuse my position here as a contributing writer but I have decided to write an article for the benefit of my brother…

Now I am not a great fan on Tesco’s but we were in a rush to get his last minute Christmas presents so in we went. (I would usually take such an opportunity to land him in it for leaving his shopping so late but then my family haven't quite mastered the ‘new fangled internet’ yet so there isn’t much use.)

Anyhow – we were in Tesco’s when, without any prior warning, he headed straight for the Nestle sweets.

I protested – explaining that Nestle had a terrible track record and that there were easy alternative chocolates... at which point I received what can be, at best, described as a look of derision (though actually I'm convinced there was a slight trace of a sneer aswell) and was summarily told that it was fine to buy Nestle as it was just 'a baby milk thing'.

In the spirit of Christmas I decided not to retort or to retaliate - aka the years have taught me that he is bigger than me and has a horrible ability to hold my head and laugh while I flail about trying to hit him - but then I got home and realised that, despite the fact that he used to think it was funny to do things such as:

set me on fire,
shoot at me with an air rifle, or
tell my parents I had been smoking when I had just managed to convince them I was leaning out of the window to check I could escape in the event of emergency

he is actually a great guy who wouldn’t wish bad things for anyone.

So – Pete – just for you I have summarised some things about Nestle that you should know before snaffling those Quality Street so quickly next year…

First – the 'baby milk thing'

UNICEF note that: “If every baby were exclusively breastfed from birth for six months, an estimated 1.3 million additional lives would be saved and millions more enhanced every year.”

By encouraging mothers to feed their infants baby milk powder – which in many instances will be mixed with contaminated water – Nestle contributes to the avoidable death of 1.3 million every year. A figure the same as if the entire population of Estonia were wiped out on an annual basis.

Nestle is not entirely to blame of course but they are a market leader and despite numerous boycotts of their products IBFAN note that ‘Monitoring shows Nestlé to be the largest single source of violations of the marketing Code worldwide.’ So they certainly aren’t helping matters!

But, even if this does not convince you to stop your Kit Kat break, they have other black marks against their name too.

Nestle has been involved in numerous lawsuits due to malpractice and environmental exploitation concerning their bottled water (Perrier, Buxton, San Pellegrino).

Nestle uses genetically engineered foods in countries where there are no laws prohibiting their inclusion. In addition, their products have been found to have dangerous levels of lead and cadmium.

The regulation of their labour force is pitiful, resulting in them being sued by the International Labor Rights Fund for, “involvement in the trafficking, torture, and forced labor of children”.

Though there is no direct evidence Nestle have been implicit in the murder of union members in Columbia and the Phillipines and has been criticized for extreme action in its union busting.

Nestle is in fact so bad that it is the number 1 boycotted company.

For a full run down have a look on the Responsible Shopper site – it is an alarming read.

Also so you can avoid them in the future – have a look at the Bad Corporation Information site for a full list of the many products that Nestle make, aside from chocolate and coffee.

Some other Nestle products include:

Ski yoghurt

Buxton

Perrier

San Pellegrino

Buitoni pasta

Lean Cuisine

Cheerios

Sheddies

Garnier

L’Oreal

Maybeline

Felix

Purina

Winalot

And lastly, as I know that you will want to, you can join the boycott via the Baby Milk Action site.

So there you go Pete – hope it was helpful.

Actually - hope I'll still get a present this year… there are some great alternative chocolates in the directory by the way!