The video discusses the dark side of Nestle, a company perceived as harmless for producing chocolate and cat food. However, the narrator reveals that Nestle is the world's largest food company, with a history of exploiting vulnerable populations.
In the 1970s, Nestle launched an aggressive marketing campaign in developing countries, discouraging breastfeeding and promoting their baby formula as a superior alternative. This led to the deaths of thousands of babies due to improper use of the formula and lack of access to clean water.
Nestle also engages in questionable practices, such as paying medical professionals to promote their products, bribing healthcare workers, and advertising in hospitals. The company has been accused of breaking the law in countries with lax regulations.
Furthermore, Nestle is the world's leading producer of plastic bottles, which contributes to environmental pollution. The company's former CEO suggested that access to water is not a human right, and Nestle has been known to divert clean water from communities, forcing people to buy bottled water.
The narrator also highlights Nestle's use of forced labor and child slavery in their cocoa supply chain, which the company has been aware of since the year 2000. Despite promising to eradicate child labor, Nestle has missed multiple deadlines and continues to use exploitative practices.
Ultimately, the narrator concludes that Nestle is not a food company, but a natural resource company that deprives people of necessities and sells them expensive alternatives.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. Nestle is the world's largest food company.
2. Nestle was founded in Switzerland in 1867 by Henry Nestle.
3. Henry Nestle was one of the first people to produce milk-based baby formula.
4. Baby formula is still one of Nestle's biggest money-makers.
5. The formula industry's market value is projected to reach $119 billion by 2025.
6. Companies make 23 cents for every dollar they make in sales from formula.
7. In the 1970s, Nestle expanded its formula market globally.
8. Nestle launched an aggressive global marketing campaign to promote its formula over breastfeeding.
9. Nestle paid medical professionals to promote their powder in Asia and Africa.
10. Nestle hired saleswomen to dress up as nurses and give out free medical advice and samples.
11. The World Health Organization passed the International Code of Marketing Breast Milk Substitutes in 1981.
12. Nestle is still at it, but has gotten sneakier in its marketing tactics.
13. In 2018, Save the Children released a report detailing how Nestle and other formula companies are still bribing healthcare workers and giving out free samples in medical settings.
14. Nestle is the world's leading producer of plastic bottles, which it fills with bottled water.
15. In 2005, Nestle's former CEO suggested that access to water wasn't a human right.
16. Nestle gets most of its water from municipal water supplies in North America, paying about $10 for every tanker of high-quality water.
17. Once Nestle wraps the water in plastic, the $10 tanker is suddenly worth $50,000.
18. In Pakistan, Nestle was found to be diverting free clean water away from thousands of people who were forced to drink sludge water.
19. Nestle is also polluting water sources, including a recent incident in France where a Nestle-owned powdered milk factory released biological sludge into a river, killing over three metric tons of fish.
20. Around the year 2000, Nestle, Cadbury, and Mars were criticized for using forced labor and child labor to harvest cocoa beans for their chocolate brands.
21. In 2010, Nestle took steps to address the issue of child labor in its supply chain by partnering with Fairtrade.
22. As of 2020, Nestle has ended its partnership with Fairtrade and is focusing on sustainable cocoa farming with the Rainforest Alliance.
23. Nestle's major strategy is depriving people of necessities and then selling them an expensive alternative.