Wow. From the Company who had an Entire Philippine Campaign on "Reading the Label"

Nestle rebuked by the FDA for misleading nutritional labeling

December 25, 2009 | 9:02 am

The Food and Drug Administration came down on Nestle earlier this month for marketing its childrens’ juice boxes as “medical” foods.

In a Dec. 3 letter, the FDA said the company mislabeled its Boost drink, which comes in flavors like chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, “as a medical food for the medical condition of ‘failure to thrive’ and also for ‘pre/post surgery, injury or trauma, chronic illnesses.’” According to federal guidelines, the letter explains, “medical foods must be for the dietary management of a specific disorder, disease, or condition for which there are distinctive nutritional

requirements and must be intended to be used under medical supervision.”

Not sure “failure to thrive” really counts as a disease.

But wait, there’s more. A second letter dated Dec. 4 criticizes Nestle’s Juicy Juice line for, among other things, claiming the drink “helps support brain development” in children younger than 2. Also, the letter said the labels “may lead consumers to believe that the products are 100% orange/tangerine juice or 100% grape juice when, in fact, they are not.”

A Nestle representative told Reuters that the company would fully cooperate with the FDA. But Nestle isn’t the first company to be accused of playing fast and loose with food labels to tug on those parental guilt strings -- there are many more common claims that may not raise federal ire. Think of the phrases “whole grain” and “good source of ___.” Check out Consumer Reports’ ShopSmart guide to tricky lingo -- No. 6 on the list, regarding Cheerios and the lowering of cholesterol, might sound remarkably similar to the FDA’s issue with Nestle.

Children aren’t savvy enough to read between the marketing lines, so their parents must learn to be. No excuses -- it’s often as simple as turning that juice box over to check out the ingredients and thenutrition label.

-- Amina Khan

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/12/nestle-fda-juicy-juice-boost-nutrition-label.html

Why am I not surprised? There seems to be, or more appropriately, there IS a pattern of guile and chicanery in the way Nestle operates in different countries. Tsk, tsk. Skillful wording on products to make consumers believe there is more inside the box than there really is.

This reminds me of the episode of Madmen where the Ad Agency alongside their Lucky Strike client were shot down by the US FDA for claiming that cigarettes were not unhealthy! Oh, by the way, the show's setting was in the 50's. Hello, Nestle, this misleading style was so fifty years ago.

Honesty? Integrity? Fairness? Nestle's core values are really nothing more than lip service.

Corporate Hypocrisy: A Study in Contrasts

Per the Filipino press article (inset), Nestle Philippines Inc. just embarked on strengthening its human resource pipeline through its Management Immersion for Leadership Excellence or MILE program (I really don't know why acronyms are "in" thing in corporations but then that's a another story). The top executives of the company were presenting Nestle business cases to the students/would-be employees in a bid to recruit them to be the next generation business leaders of this giant multinational company. Their selling point - "This is how we build champions." Their theme -" See the Nestle difference." Wow. Great salesmanship. Great program. Great company.

Or is it?

Did they include in their business case presentations anything that has to do with Corporate Ethics? How does Nestle treat its Filipino SME partners?

Yup, they do build champions - Champions of corporate greed, Champions of bullying the small companies, Champions of anti-trust practices, Champions of covering their own asses.

Yup, we see that Nestle difference - how to use size to bully, prolong and weasel itself out of clearly ethical, moral and legal issues it gets involved in.

Just look at the previous articles of this blog to see what kind of Champions Nestle builds and the difference Nestle makes.

Is there any better form of showing hypocrisy by Nestle than putting out press releases that contradict its own actions? Or by creating a student recruitment program without disclosing its own violations of its values? Please, Nestle, please show the recruits, the students, and us more of who you are.