Child labor has been a key issue for cocoa suppliers and chocolate-producing companies for many years. Nestlé and many other companies signed an agreement in 2001 saying this wouldn't be a problem anymore. Responding to the most recent case (Nestlé INC. V.S. Doe, 2021), they responded with, “The lawsuit does not advance the shared goal of ending child labor in the cocoa industry” and “child labor is unacceptable and goes against everything we stand for". They initially declined the alleged claims of child labor, and it goes against their policy, then launched their Nestlé cocoa plan to assure sustainable cocoa supply chains. Alexander Von Maillot addresses the root of child labor, which he claims is poverty. He has decided that they need to create an eight-year-long strategy to prevent child labor. Nestlé will invest 1.43 million dollars in the new strategy. What is the new strategy? Well, the company claims a cash incentive will be directly paid to cocoa farming families when certain activities are done, such as enrolling children into school. The strategy, known as the income accelerator program, offers support to farmers who are going through the cocoa farming transition.
The IAC program tackles the symptoms rather than the causes of poverty. As we know, cocoa farms earn very little, which means they can't pay workers much, which leads to pulling children out of school and paying them little to nothing. Critics suggest they could just pay the farmers more, but the company states it's more complicated than that; increasing the pay of farmers can lead to oversupply, causing a deflationary effect. They also add cocoa buyers in West Africa who buy from wholesale, which prices are state controlled. Maillot says there is no turning back from this plan and "we have no choice". Although he seems confident of the plan, critics still remain in judgement. In my opinion, they aren't doing much; they are promising and saying all these things about how child labor is against their policy yet aren't doing anything about it. Although Nestlé says this program increases farmers' pay up to 25% there has been no actual report from those farmers. All of these numbers are given to us by Nestlé themselves. I'm not so sure if I believe the program is truly working until we get intel from an actual farmer.
This is the most recent incident reported from Nestlé, but let's talk about their response to previous scandals. Reported in 2024 that Nestlé destroyed a large water supply and has been accused multiple times of harvesting water from dry areas. Nestlé responded by voicing that they will work with local partners to develop solutions. They use a five-step approach consisting of 1) saving water, 2) protecting the quality of natural water sources and catchment, 3) sharing their knowledge, 4) contributing to communities, and 5) certifying all their sites to the Alliance for Water Stewardship Standard by 2025. They are developing water projects that will support reforestation efforts to help prevent run-off, wetland restoration and rainwater harvesting, and drip irrigation to reduce water withdrawals. They also say they have “a valid basis of right for surface water and groundwater”. Which means they don't care if they pull water from droughtful areas. They say the water project will take effect in 2025, so we will see if it actually makes an impact on conserving water supply.
Lastly, let's go over Nestle's response to their sugar additives in baby food. Their baby food was seen to have 7.3 grams of sugar in the formula sold in lower class countries. Nestlé accepts the claims made aginst them and has this to say: “has reduced by 11% the total amount of added sugars in [its] infant cereal portfolio worldwide” over the past decade and that it will “further reduce the level of added sugars without compromising on quality, safety and taste”. Again, this company is stating what they will do, but we haven't seen any adjustments. The article exposing Nestlé just came out in 2024, so it might take a few years to reassess whether or not Nestlé is actually changing the problem. They also were accused of forced marketing, claiming their formula was close to breastfeeding and would be a good substitution. This is a violation of the WHO (World Health Organization). After Nestlé was accused of this violation, the company didn't respond to rising questions. Instead, a spokesperson said the company now supports the WHO and that breastfeeding is the best option. Obviously, they didn't do a great job of fixing this problem; they just assumed that because it happened so long ago, the situation would be forgotten about.
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