OMLRecap

The history of Nestlé Corporation is not just a chronicle of the success of Swiss chocolate, but a real thriller about how a transnational giant is ready to go through the lives of millions for the sake of profit. The darkest episode was the "baby mixes scandal" of the 1970s: the company aggressively imposed breast milk substitutes on mothers in developing countries, using models in nurse costumes and free samples. When women lost their own milk, they found that they had neither clean water to dilute the powder nor the money to buy it, which led to mass exhaustion and death of thousands of infants. But the "chocolate empire" did not stop there. Nestlé has been accused for decades of exploiting child slave labor on cocoa plantations in West Africa, where thousands of children work in inhumane conditions so that the world can enjoy KitKat and Nesquik bars. Environmental cynicism is added to ethical failures: while in many regions people suffer from drought, the corporation pumps millions of liters of water from artesian wells almost free of charge to sell it in plastic bottles, stating through the mouths of its former chairman that access to water is not a human right, but a commodity. Even in terms of product quality, the company has repeatedly been at the center of scandals: from the detection of dangerous lead in Maggi noodles in India to melamine in milk in China and E. coli in cookie dough. Despite endless boycotts in more than 20 countries and high-profile lawsuits, the giant continues to dominate the market, masterfully hiding a tough strategy of enrichment at any cost behind a cozy bird's nest logo. #Nestle #blackrock #stories #Anticapitalism