Nestle, a Swiss company founded in 1866 by Henri Nestlé, is one of the largest food companies in the world. With brands such as Crunch, Cheerios and KitKat, Nestle is very popular in the market. However, behind the scenes, this company may not be as innocent as it appears.
Over the past few decades, Nestle has been involved in numerous scandals, including the use of child labor, setting high prices for water in places dealing with famine and the distribution of contaminated baby formula.
In 2005, a group of children from Mali sued Nestle, Mars, Hershey and Cargill for profiting off child labor on the Ivory Coast cocoa plantations. Although the case was initially rejected, the US Supreme Court decided in 2016 that it was substantial enough to be brought up again. Allegedly, the kids were trafficked to the Ivory Coast, forced to work without protection from cuts or pesticides and kept from contacting their families.
However, in 2021, the case was dismissed. Even though Nestle is an American corporation, everything happened overseas; therefore, they were not held liable for the child slavery happening in Africa.
Nestle has also allegedly used its numerous water reserves across drought-stricken countries to exploit consumers. Many places that struggle with having access to clean water, including Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada and Michigan, are located next to Nestle water plants, yet are some of the most water-deprived places around the world. Nestle has repeatedly taken clean drinking water from these communities to use for bottled water, only to sell it back to them at an upcharge.
Nestle’s problematic tendencies are not new; they have been happening for decades. In 1977, Nestle was boycotted due to its use of toxic chemicals in its baby formula and its exploitation of third-world countries. Nestle promoted using their baby formula while knowing many places they were marketing to had no access to clean water and were illiterate, meaning they could not read the warning against exploitation. The contaminated water turned the baby formula deadly, and caused the death of hundreds of thousands of babies.
This corporation has gotten away with many heinous actions, yet continues to get away with more due to being one of the highest earning companies in the world. Unfortunately, it does not seem like Nestle will ever be held accountable for their actions. If one feels like doing something, boycotting is one of the most effective things consumers can do, and one will at least know they are not supporting Nestle’s illegal and immoral actions.
