Comment by greatgib
20 days ago
Long running story already. What the report doesn't say is that it looks like that affected product batches were manufactured or manufactured with ingredients coming from China.
It is a shame for Nestle to have to import ingredients from China for such simple products anyway. It's the greed at topest level.
This is a bit slandering, no? Cargill is a key supplier of arachidonic acid, and let’s say that’s where Nestlé gets it.
Are they at fault for Cargill’s sourcing of Chinese ARA/DHA? Okay, they are, let’s say. But why are you buying virtually any product? It’s your fault that lots of manufacturing is done in China. Go make your own algae oil to put in your baby formula and we’ll discuss the pricing.
What’s more interesting about all this: a) product recalls work fast; b) the baby formula industry is too dependent on a handful of suppliers of key ingredients; c) our brand of formula doesn’t use AHA so we appear to be safe for now.
> It's the greed at topest level.
You say this as if it's some deviant behaviour that needs correcting.
But greed is normal and expected in a free market economy. Suppliers are expected to seek to reduce their costs and maximise their profits.
> greed is normal and expected in a free market economy
OK, technically true, just like saying "water flows downhill" when someone's house is flooding. It isn't productive, the fact is well known.
"The system incentivizes this" and "this is good/bad" are two entirely different statements. One doesn't address the other [1], until you make a moral judgement about the outcome.
> You say this as if it's some deviant behaviour that needs correcting.
Is it moral and correct for infants to be fed contaminated baby formula? The mismatch between what is and what ought to be is deviance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
> It isn't productive, the fact is well known.
I agree. My point is that the original comment was similarly unproductive.
The point of "greed" here is when you are starting to cut corners to make more money to the point of impacting the quality/safety/honesty of your product. Thinking that no one would notice.
You could buy whatever random Chinese milk powder brand. But Nestle is advertising itself on the upmost quality and care for you kids. Especially the brand impacted.
It's like going to a restaurant selling the best homemade luxury food and you go to the kitchen and you find that they cook expired supermarket frozen food because they greedily were thinking that it would be more profitable.
So you're insinuating that importing from China automatically means poor quality? I don't believe that's true, especially for large companies who are able to manage the supply chain (as, AIUI, doing business with China famously requires).
I think you need to address that to validate your original comment. Otherwise there's no justification for your claim.
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Greed as a concept covers multiple ideas. One is principled self interest like you would see in an objectivist manifesto. The other is un-principled, short sighted, and stupid greed that simply grabs whatever gains they can without thinking about future consequences.
I believe that Nestle epitomizes the latter.
Chinese citizens routinely import baby formula from the West because they don't trust their own country's manufacturing standards.
Something to think about.
It's not like any other country knows how to manufacture things. Outsourcing and greed rotted our economies from the core outwards.
I try to boycott them as much as possible. I thought the boycott nestle thing was just a weird Reddit thing until actually reading about this company. It’s pretty sickening.
What blew my mind was how most of the food industry is pretty much owned by about eight corporations.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Beh...
Chances are you're still buying Nestle. You can check here.
https://www.boycottbuddy.app