There’s the
baby milk scandal of the 1970s. There have been accusations of child labor, unethical water mining, deforestation, and
bailing on Fairtrade farmers.
There’s the ongoing
American water scandal, where Nestlé has tried to buy water, bottle it, and sell it back to people on the land that is now dry. This is so serious it has reached the
US congress. Remember, too, Nestlé is one of the
world’s biggest plastic polluters.
There was also the attempt to trademark the phrase ‘vegan butcher’ for its new plant-based US brand Sweet Earth Foods.
Nestlé lost that case, thanks to a challenge from The Herbivorous Butcher to keep the phrase available to all. Nestlé also tried to use the Impossible Burger’s trademark. It lost that case too.
But it isn’t the worst offender. For
MarketWatch and the charity Oxfam, Nestlé often comes out best for taking action on major issues within global food supply chains.
In Oxfam’s
Behind the Brands report, it received the highest scores for addressing transparency, water use, and climate change of any major food company. Companies such as Kellogg’s and PepsiCo came out worse.
So if you’re boycotting Nestlé, you really need to boycott
every major food corporation and the companies they own. Does that include the vegan ones, such as Oatly, now with
major investment from profiteers Blackstone?
Intersectional Lives Matter
The KitKat and me have history. If you grew up in Croydon, like I did, you would know the huge Nestlé headquarters. You’d know someone who worked there too.....
From the article