Global Policy Forum

By Kevin Maguire

A leading British cancer charity has rejected a £1m approach from Nestlé over accusations that the Swiss food conglomerate promotes unsafe baby milk powder in developing countries. Breakthrough Breast Cancer, a high-profile organisation supported by supermodels including Elle Macpherson and Kate Moss, turned down the proposed link amid concern about the company's motives. The charity, renowned for its fashion fund-raising, feared that Nestlé, target of a long running boycott by anti-baby formula campaigners, hoped to use Breakthrough's respectability and positive image to bolster its own position. The company offered to support the charity financially and promote its work on packets of Nestlé breakfast cereals, such as Shredded Wheat and Golden Grahams.

The charity declined the offer, which was made by Cereal Partners, a joint venture with a US firm producing Nestlé's breakfast brands, because research suggests that breast-feeding reduces the risk of breast cancer. Delyth Morgan, Breakthrough's chief executive, said: "We can confirm we were approached by Cereal Partners regarding a proposed cause-related marketing promotion but after careful consideration decided not to proceed with the partnership." Breakthrough, which has close links with Marks & Spencer and Avon, aims to raise £7m a year and funds research projects at the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

The refusal is a blow for Nestlé, which campaigners accuse of jeopardising the lives of mothers and infants by pushing powdered baby milk sales in developing countries where water supplies are often polluted. Thousands of mothers suffer malnourishment, argue Nestlé's critics, and thousands of bottle-fed children die of diarrhoea. The International Baby Food Action Network also alleges that Nestlé fails to abide by an international code banning unethical marketing practices, including inducements to doctors to recommend bottles and free trial supplies of milk substitute to mothers. Nestlé rejects the charges, insisting it is a socially responsible company.

Patti Rundall, policy director of Cambridge-based Baby Milk Action, the British wing of the anti-Nestlé network, said: "With its enormous marketing budget, running into the billions, Nestlé undermines breast-feeding, which is a lifeline for infants.
"Evidence continues to mount about the importance of breast-feeding in the long term in reducing heart disease, obesity, diabetes and breast cancer."

Ms Rundall said that as a result of the Nestlé boycott, the big UK development agencies had for years been refusing to accept money from Nestlé, as had several health authorities, universities and celebrities.
"They all know how Nestlé will use their good name to cover up its dangerous marketing. It is heartening that health charities with a UK focus are starting to consider the global impact of such companies too."

In a statement, the company said: "Nestlé takes its corporate social responsibilities very seriously. The company firmly believes that breast-feeding is the best way to feed a baby, and we are strongly committed to the protection and promotion of breast-feeding.
"However, when mothers cannot or choose not to breast-feed, infant formula is the only product recognised by the World Health Organisation as a suitable alternative. Nestlé globally adopts the WHO code."

Writers Germaine Greer and Jim Crace pulled out of the Guardian Hay Festival two years ago after Nestlé was named as one of the sponsors, and the company's vice-chairman, Niels Christiansen, spoke on the subject Good Business: a Moral Maze.