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Infant milk powder is hardly available in the USA anymore. European manufacturers now deliver by air freight.
There is a dramatic shortage of baby food in the USA. The reason is the failure of a production facility of the pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories in Sturgis, Michigan. Abbott is the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the United States.
Several products had to be recalled at the beginning of the year. Infants may have become ill and two may have died because of bacterial contamination in baby food. Production in Michigan was completely halted.
“When we left, everything was gone”
Baby food shelves are currently empty in many parts of the United States because Abbott Laboratories recalled all products. On Monday, the company said it would resume production in Michigan.
Desperate parents try to secure the remaining cans. So does Jennifer Kersey, mother of seven-month-old Blake Kersey Junior: “I suddenly realized that there is a shortage of breast milk substitutes. When we left, it was all gone.”
Legend:
In a supermarket in San Antonio, Texas, the shelves with baby food are mostly empty.
key stone
This is the case for countless parents in the USA at the moment and they are standing in front of empty shelves in the shops. The state of Texas is particularly affected by the shortage. Parents drive around for hours to get baby food.
The shortage of baby food is particularly affecting women with menial jobs, says US correspondent Viviane Manz. “They often have no opportunity to stay at home after the birth or to breastfeed at work or to pump breast milk.” There is also no guaranteed maternity leave in the US. For such families in particular, the search for baby food is a major burden, says Manz.
Unimaginable in the US
Food shortages for babies in one of the richest countries in the world – the topic is highly emotional. In the USA, many are already making comparisons with the conditions in the poorest countries in the world. Many politicians now want to hold the government accountable.
So does Elise Marie Stefanik (Republican Party), who sits in the US House of Representatives for the state of New York. “I called for measures to combat the baby food crisis back in February. The Biden administration failed to come up with a plan,” she wrote on Twitter.
Imagine babies and children being put to bed hungry while parents desperately trying to find food that is hard to come by. “We’re not in a Third World country. This should never happen in the United States of America,” says Stefanik.
Imports from Europe – by plane
To reduce delivery bottlenecks, the US drug agency FDA announced on Monday that it would make the rules for importing products more flexible. US President Joe Biden also intervened because of the shortage of baby milk powder.
And now the leading European manufacturers Nestlé (Switzerland) and Reckitt Benckiser (Great Britain) have also entered the scene. The two companies have announced that they will export more baby food to the USA. Nestlé is currently air freighting baby food from the Netherlands and Switzerland to the United States.
In the UK, Reckitt Benckiser has ramped up baby food production by about 30 percent and increased its supplies, Reuters said. The company now covers more than 50 percent of the entire range of baby food in the USA.