Nestle is the largest food and beverage company in the world operating in 194 different countries employing around 333 000 people it's safe to say that Nestle has a foothold in the industry they do everything from coffee to water baby formula even hair care products but not all of their products are safe they are cookie dough for example was linked to some serious health issues it's concerning that some of their bottled water comes from small villages in Pakistan depriving those who need clean water the most and your next bite of sweet delight might actually be a
product of forced labor let's find out some more of Nestle's Dark Secrets shall we everyone uses Nestle products they make some of our favorite candies frozen food and ice cream products Brands like KitKat Stouffer's Nest Cafe Wonka Nestle's crunch Hot Pockets and Perrier Nestle provides a food and beverage product for every stage of your human and pets development but Nestle is simultaneously one of the most to protested boycotted and overall hated companies in the world how can that be well let's count the ways they say the power corrupts and behind every great Fortune lies a
great crime so a good giant corporation like Nestle is bound to have a few skeletons in their closet let's start with that time that Nestle's CEO stated that he didn't feel that water was a human right on top of being the world's largest food and beverage company Nestle is also the world's largest supplier of bottled water and because of that Nestle feels like water is more of a human need than a human right going so far as to push for this official change at the world water Forum in 2000 then their chairman is on record
saying this quote there are two different opinions on the matter or water the one opinion which I think is Extreme is represented by The ngos Who bang on about declaring water a public right that means that as a human being you should have a right to water that's an extreme solution what makes this even more nefarious is the the fact that Nestle is so persistent in draining aquifiers to bottle water that it's contributed to droughts in California alone Nestle has a permit to bottle unlimited water and is not legally obligated to specify what percentage of
the water reserves they consume Nestle is also one of the most frequent violators of water pollution limits in 1997 a report found that water pollution limits were breached over 2100 times in a 12-month Span in the UK alone in China Nestle takes advantage of already polluted Waters to turn a better profit since the water in certain regions of China are polluted Nestle steps in to be their near Sole Provider of bottled water and in Brazil Nestle continues to illegally extract water for their Perrier brand although they lost the legal action Nestle continues to extract Waters
during the appeals process which can take up to 10 years or more to complete when Nestle is not finding ways to hoard the water of entire regions they are bottling up tap water and passing it off as bottled in 2011 a chicago-based business sued Nestle claiming that their Ice Mountain Water was mostly tap water Nestle was sued for false labeling and settled out of court for 10 million in charitable contributions and discounts although the company admitted no guilt it must be nice to be able to just pay for stories that make the company look bad
just to go away and who doesn't love chocolate nestally makes some of the most well-known chocolate candies the world over but those tasty treats come at a better cost in 2010 a documentary brought to light that Nestle purchased cocoa beans from ivorian cocoa plantations that utilize Force to child labor these children are between 12 and 15 years old and are sometimes trafficked from nearby countries to Cote d'Ivoire to fill the demand later that year the Fair Labor Association also known as the fla found serious violations of Nestle's own Supply fire code the report stated that
Nestle didn't carry out checks for child labor and abuse and Executive Vice President said in a statement that child labor goes against everything Nestle stands for and that stopping child labor was their top priority but the fla report stated Nestle was fully aware of child labor in their supply chain and did little to improve the situation Gerber is the most notable name brand in baby products as such they advertise and promote their baby formula pretty aggressively in lesser economically developed countries or ledcs for short Nestle promoted their baby formulas a little too aggressively in the
1990s Gerber targeted the poor in ledcs making it seem as if their baby formula was as good as mother's milk this is extremely unethical for moral and financial reasons the first of which is that Nestle Gerber never explained to mothers of newborns in ledcs that it's necessary to boil the water to sterile realize it prior to adding the formula resulting in babies receiving polluted formula most mothers in ledcs didn't have access to clean water and suffered from low literacy rates given the quality of the water due to the abject Poverty of their surroundings breastfeeding was
a safer and more economical choice than baby formula Nestle ignored these facts and encouraged mothers to use their formula instead of breastfeeding claiming it was the nearest thing in the world to mother's milk the children that were given formula with tainted water were 6 to 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a child who was breastfed and even if the infants were given the proper formula with clean water the formula lacked many essential nutrients and antibodies produced Naturally by breast milk even worse Nestle gave
out free formula samples to hospitals and maternity Wards in ledcs but once the mothers had been discharged from the hospital the formula was no longer free and at that point any mothers that had their children on formula had their lactation interrupted and the family needed to continue buying the formula several countries and organizations have boycotted Nestle there's even an international Nestle boycott committee to monitor their practices it can be concluded that Nestle has definitely done something wrong greenwashing is the deceptive practice of providing the public or investors with false or misleading information about the environmental
impact of a company's products their practices and operations greenwashing could also be Nestle's middle name obviously if you're the world's biggest food and beverage company as well as the world's largest supplier of bottled water it's important to be perceived as an environmentally ethical company but perception is not reality in 2008 Nestle launched an advertising campaign in Canada that claimed their water bottles avoid landfills and that bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world but according to the book Gorilla Marketing to Heal the World by friends of Earth Nestle's own corporate citizen
report showed that many of their bottles were never recycled and in fact did find their way to the landfills another example of Nestle's green washing occurred in 2017 the Environmental Group Mighty Earth conducted an investigation finding that industrial practices had played an instrumental part in the deforestation of the Ivory Coast and Ghana mainly due to the production of and consumption of cocoa beans the cocoa Traders would buy beans that were grown illegally in protected regions and then sell those beans to companies like Hershey Nestle and Mars 90 percent of the space in some national parks
had been converted to produce cocoa plants and mighty Earth predicts that by 2030 there will be no forests left in the Ivory Coast and Ghana in July of 2009 the FDA and CDC warned customers not to eat varieties of pre-packaged Nestle Toll House cookie dough due to the risk of E coli this was due to 50 people in 30 States eating the product and becoming ill 2008 was the year of the infamous Chinese milk Scandal for Nestle that year six infants died and as many as 860 were hospitalized with kidney problems after they were given
Nestle products contaminated with melamine which was illegally added to increase the protein content of the products the number of victims quickly Rose to over 300 000 victims and Nestle sent over 20 specialized Swiss scientists to five different Chinese plants to help strengthen their Chemical Testing procedures in 2012 the competition Bureau filed charges of price fixing in the chocolate Market in Canada against Nestle Cadbury Hershey and Mars in an attempt to illegally control the market in 2015 those charges were dropped but in 2013 Nestle paid 9 million Canadian dollars to settle a civil class action lawsuit
that claimed price fixing in the Canadian chocolate market and denied any wrongdoing Nestle Canada's CEO faced criminal charges for price fixing but those charges were ultimately stayed in 2015 against Mars Canada and Nestle Cadbury was given immunity for being the initial whistleblowers in the case Hershey pleaded guilty of price fixing and paid a fine of 4 million in 2013 as restitution a larger class action lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania claiming that the chocolate Giants could not get a price increase in Canada without first fixing prices in the U.S that case was dismissed due to a
lack of evidence Nestle is a massive company that contains some of the world's favorite food and beverage products but it's also a massively hated company and for a number of good reasons I hope this at least makes you think twice before opening up that next candy bar or bottle of water thank you so much for making it to the end of the video and as always don't forget to like subscribe and share keep tuning in to the richest for more content from the Finer Things in life
