THE JUNK FOOD PUSHERS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 31

In the 1960s, as birthrates declined in the developing world, Nestlé began rapaciously marketing infant
formula in poor developing countries to create a market for the product. They hired women, dressed them
as nurses, and had them tout the benefits of their infant formula over breast milk, and by giving away
free samples they created a demand. However, the women, often extremely poor, could not afford the
product. They would dilute the formula with water from local sources that was often contaminated, lead-
ing to diarrheal diseases and sometimes death for thousands of infants. A worldwide boycott initiated in
1977 drew attention to this unethical marketing campaign. While some of Nestlé's tactics have changed,
the company is still marketing infant formula to poor women around the world.
Today Nestlé peddles some six thousand brands of foods and beverages in eighty-six countries. The
Swiss giant operates 79 manufacturing facilities in the United States and 374 elsewhere under numerous
familiar brand names: After Eight, Butterfinger, Carnation, Coffee-Mate, Cookie Crisp, Dreyer's, Fancy
Feast, Fitness, Gerber, Häagen-Dazs, Hot Pockets, Jenny Craig, Juicy Juice, Kit Kat, Nescafé, Nespresso,
Nesquik, Nestea, PowerBar, a range of Purina pet foods, Skinny Cow Ice Cream, Smarties, and Stouffer's.
Among Nestlé's most aggressive marketing campaigns is the one for bottled water. The former chair-
man of Perrier, now part of Nestlé's collection of more than seventy global bottled water brands, candidly
stated the industry's view on its virtue as a product: “It struck me . . . that all you had to do is take the water
out of the ground and then sell it for more than the price of wine, milk, or, for that matter, oil.” 23
The company sells bottled water as the healthy alternative to tap water, even though tap water is much
more stringently regulated. The company controls approximately 32 percent of bottled water sold in the
United States, and its well-known brands include Perrier, San Pellegrino, Pure Life, Poland Spring, and
several others. Nestlé owns seven out of the ten leading brands of bottled water in the United States.
While consumers believe that they are getting high-quality, uncontaminated water, bottled water is so
poorly regulated in the United States that consumers have no way of knowing what contamination lurks
within. Studies done in independent laboratories have found significant contamination in bottled water. In
October 2008, the Environmental Working Group released a report that found mixtures of thirty-eight dif-
ferent pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol, and industrial chemicals, in ten popular U.S. bottled
water brands. 24
Perpetually underfunded and short-staffed, the FDA, the agency responsible for regulation, has fewer
than three full-time employees devoted to bottled-water oversight. The rules apply only to bottled water
packaged and sold across state lines, which leaves out the 60 percent to 70 percent of water bottled and
sold within a single state.
Fewer than forty states have bottled-water regulations, and in some they are much weaker than the lim-
ited federal standards. For the 30 percent to 40 percent of bottled water that the FDA does regulate, it re-
quires that companies test four empty bottles once every three months for bacterial contamination. They
must test a sample of water for bacteria after filtration and before bottling once a week. A sample of water
must be checked for chemical, physical, and radiological contaminants only once a year. The companies
do not have to test the water after bottling or storage.
Nestlé has also been the target of the ire of communities across the nation where the company extracts
hundreds of millions of gallons of water from sensitive ecosystems and pays low fees for the privilege.
Nestlé's extraction projects have drawn criticism, protests, and litigation in a number of states, including
California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, and several New England states. Opponents charge that
the company is harming the environment by depleting aquifers and drying up wells, lakes, and streams.
In Florida, for instance, Nestlé was charged only $230 for a permit to pump millions of gallons of water
from a state park until 2018. The company does not pay taxes or fees to the state or county, even though it
makes millions of dollars in profits from the water it bottles from the park and ships throughout the South-