Nestle

I've been a little MIA lately with this blog but something that really got to me recently was the Nestle Fancy Feast scandal.

The full report is here and here

In summary however, 4 LA consumer filed a law suit against Nestle upon finding out that the main supplier of the seafood in the cat food is from a company in Thailand known for their mistreatment of people. The Thai supplier relies on human trafficking of young boys and men to sell them to captains who keep them at sea for as long as they need. Nestle has confirmed that these allegations are correct.

This really bothered me because in 2001 Nestle and other major chocolate brands promised to launch an investigation in order to end child labour, however 15 years later here we are, same company, same problem. Nestle wouldn't comment directly on the law suit, but they basically just played dumb. The only thing worse than supplying from a company who uses kidnapping tactics to sustain employees, is not caring enough to find out where your product is coming from.

A quote that is mentioned in one of the reports listed above says "It’s easy to own up to something that has already been uncovered,” he says. “By the time Nestlé owned up to slavery in the Thai seafood industry it was accepted knowledge. It’ll be a brave new world when companies are actually doing the real investigation to probe into part of their supply chains that have remained outside the public domain."

I will honestly not support Nestle and their products from now on, if Fancy Feast is derived from human trafficking and slave labour, what else are they not telling us? If you care as strongly about this as I do, here are a list of popular products produced by Nestle:

Nesquick

Nescafe

Nesspresso

Nestea

Coffee-Mate

Drumstick

Haagen-Dasz

Skinny Cow

Oreo

Gerber

Delissio Pizza

Lean Cuisine

Stouffer's

Aero

After Eight

Baby Ruth

Big Turk

Butter Finger

Chips Ahoy

Coffee Crisp

Kit Kat

Oh Henry!

Smarties

All 'Wonka' candy 

Fancy Feast

Friskies

Purina

It's inevitably difficult to stay away from all of these brands as they are all the top sellers in their market, and perhaps boycotting the company as a whole may seem drastic as Nestle is working to clean up their act, however I don't believe it should take them as long as it is to do so. Nestle is putting in minimal effort at best to have a cruelty free company- something that should be at the top of their list. 

What I keep reminding myself is that if these 4 consumers hadn't created a law suit, how long would Nestle have supplied from a slave labour company? 

Would they have ever cared enough to look into where there supplies are coming from?

With this knowledge in mind I feel I have enough basis to say that there is without a doubt more slave labour companies involved with Nestle, and that's not something I can consciously support. 

Do you agree? Let me know in the comments.