Food Notes: Milo, the Delicious Taste of Multinational Corporate Corruption

Available at most restaurants, grocery stores, and ice cream shops here, Milo is a chocolate malt powder you mix with milk or water (cold or warm) for a beverage or sprinkle on cereal or ice cream.  It originated in Australia, but is now hugely popular in Malaysia and available here in South Africa as well as a lot of other Asian, South American, and African markets.  When mixed with cold milk, the crispy powder doesn't dissolve completely, lending the drink a characteristic gritty taste.  Named after Greek athlete Milo of Crotona, it is marketed as a vitamin energy drink and an athlete is nearly always pictured on its packaging.  In most markets, however, its primary ingredient is sugar. 

Multinational corporate giant Nestle produces Milo and, since the end of World War II, this company's expansion into "developing" or postcolonial areas for production and expansion of markets and its acquisition of other food companies (from Maggi in 1947 to Gerber in 2007) typifies the rise of multinational companies flourishing through neoliberal economic policies, particularly during the beginning of the 1990s.  Connected to its expansion of markets, Nestle has engaged in corrupt and unethical business practices for at least the past thirty years since the 1977 Nestle boycott brought attention to their artificial baby milk marketing policies in "developing" countries.  The company insinuated the use of infant formula milk products was preferable to and provided greater health benefits than breastfeeding, but in areas where the water infrastructure was unreliable, infant deaths connected to the consumption of formula mixed with contaminated water increased.  Eventually, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which advocated against advertising claims for the health benefits of formula use was created in response and Nestle ultimately agreed to them (although as recently as May 2007 organizations including Save the Children Fund have alleged Nestle has breached the Code).  I can't help but wonder if any code has been developed that would challenge its ability to market Milo as a vitamin energy drink when it is basically a sugar drink.

Other recent incidents of Nestle's unethical business practices include -

2002:  Nestle challenged Ethiopia's nationalization of its agricultural production by demanding millions of dollars in compensation because Nestle acquired a parent company connected to an agricultural firm years after it had been nationalized.

2004:  Forbes magazine reported Nestle used slave and child labor on its cocoa farms in West Africa.

2005:  Nestle sold hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated animal feed in Venezuela.

2006:  Nestle co-opted the Fair Trade movement by creating a Partners Blend coffee product in the United Kingdom.  Of its almost ten thousand products, only one has been certified fair trade.   Also, it's a product that competes directly with Nestle's massively popular and widespread Nescafe brand, which can make no such claims of employing Fair Trade practices.

The big frustration, however, is that it is easy enough to highlight Nestle's bad business practices but advocating the consumption of Fair Trade or local, organic products simply isn't feasible with the structure of our markets.  Insisting that we can all "choose" to consume Fair Trade or local, organic products presupposes an economic status and market access that the majority of the world's population does not possess. 

Also, what happens to a problematic food product after it has existed and been appropriated into a variety of cultures?  For example, in Malaysia, Milo is used by many in the Indian Muslim population as an ingredient  in Roti Canai, a traditional flat bread.  A less branded version of this kind of appropriation can be found in the example of United States Native American frybread.  In the 1800s, forced reservation relocation was accompanied by government-supplied rations of flour and lard.  Making do with what they were given, some groups created frybread (flat dough fried in lard).  This bread has become so popular, that South Dakota named it the "official state bread" in 2005, the same year when activist groups finally gained attention pointing out its connection to obesity, diabetes, and other health problems endemic to reservation conditions and some Native American populations.  But from my experience - go to any Navajo food stand in Northern Arizona and you can get a Navajo taco - a hugely popular, inexpensive (and really delicious) dish that uses the fry bread with seasoned beans, beef, and shredded cheese. 

Rather than vilifying individual products or companies, how effective would highlighting the limited economic and physical access certain groups, whether they are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia or Flagstaff, Arizona, have to choose food products, healthful or otherwise, and work towards expanding access and choices?

   

Comments

[Mark]

You make me feel bad about the fact that I love Milo :P

Seriously, I've had that shit since I was a kid, although the version that we got in New Guinea didn't have sugar - you had to add it. You can get it in grocery stores here (I have some in my cupboard right now)

[mar]

Well, I'm a huge fan of Ovaltine but a few years ago Nestle acquired them. It doesn't mean we should feel bad for liking those products, just upset that the company that produces either product engages in unethical practices and exploits markets and people. I feel bad we don't have an easily identifiable alternative option for our chocolate malt fixes.