This page contains a variety of national and global monitoring reports from IBFAN, WHO and others.
WHO UNICEF multi-country report – How marketing of formula milk influences our decisions on infant feeding
WHO report on scope and impact of Digital Marketing
WHO Policy Brief and “model law” for the European Region covering breastmilk substitutes, baby foods and related products
WHO/UNICEF/IBFAN 2022 Code Status report .
NATIONAL IBFAN MONITORING REPORTS (page down for global reports)
IBFAN MODEL LAW 2018 Model Law
Honduras: Informe de Resultados del Monitoreo al Codigo Internacional 2020
Indonesia: Breaking the Code – AIMI Final
Mexico: MEXICO Monitoreo 2020 final
Perú IBFAN Informe Monitoreo Establecimientos.
Perú IBFAN Informe Monitoreo Redes e Internet
Colombia”Anexo-biberones-y-Chupos-Monitoreo-al-CICSLM-2021
CHILE: Informe-Monitoreo Chile (2021) final
BRAZIL:BRASIL monitoreo 2020 final español
INDIA: Click HERE
ITALY: CLICK HERE. or HERENestlé/Wyeth’s deceptive marketing in China – New C-Section formula
WHO report on the scope and impact of digital marketing for the promotion of breast-milk substitutes
Marketing the $55 billion formula milk industry
Wednesday 23 February 2022 REGISTER HERE for the launch of WHO’s new report and see Policy blog
GLOBAL MONITORING GUIDES AND REPORTS:
2019 IBFAN Code Monitoring Kit
Company Profiles
Nestlé BTR 2017
FonteraMilks for mothers ICDC Focus
UNICEF has a free of charge training course. See this descriptive page where people can register.
https://agora.unicef.org/course/view.php?id=12360
2019 ICDC Code Monitoring Kit
Code reports published biennially by WHO, UNICEF and IBFAN
2022 Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 2022 WHO UNICEF IBFAN
2020 Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 2020: summary (2020)
2018 Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 2018 (2018)
2016:Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code: status report 2016: summary (WHO/NMH/NHD/16.1, 2016)
Global Breastfeeding Collective – Toolkit on the Code
A snippet from the Archives showing just how Nestlé established its market in China.
CHILD HEALTHCARE
Infant formula firms are using unwitting doctors and nurses to boost sales, WHO reveals
Infant formula firms are using unwitting doctors and nurses to boost sales, WHO reveals
How Switzerland danced to the Nestlé tune – Mexico junk food struggle Against warning labels on junk food in Mexico
Public Eye, July 2022 Timo Kollbrunner
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/07/03/how-nestle-tried-to-pressure-mexico-s-anti-obesity-policy_5988826_4.html
https://www.sdpnoticias.com/opinion/nestle-quiso-boicotear-ley-mexicana-de-etiquetado-de-alimentos-revela-le-monde/
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Brazil” “Press release IDEC wins over Nestlé, 4July2022
Court orders Nestlé to clearly signal the difference between infant formulas and growing-up milks IDEC filed a lawsuit against the company for cross-promotion that causes confusion for consumers
The São Paulo Court granted IDEC (Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection) an injunction against the company Nestlé Brasil, for cross-promotion practice. According to the court decision, within 60 days the company will have to put stickers on all the packaging of Neslac Supreme, Neslac Comfor, Neslac Comfor Zero Lactose, Nestonutri and Ninho Fases 3+ products with the following warning:
ATTENTION CONSUMERS! This product called growing-up milk should not be confused with infant formula or whole cow’s milk. Growing-up milks have packaging and labels very similar to those of infant formulas, they are usually placed side by side on the shelves of supermarkets and pharmacies and have lower prices. According to the Ministry of Health, they do not replace breast milk or infant formula, and should not be offered to babies and children under 2 years of age.”
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WYETH IN CHINA
A new formula launched by Wyeth is promoted on an on-ling shopping website in China. It uses deceptive and idealising marketing to suggest that adding HMO and lactoferrin in advantagous for C-Section mothers and babies.
https://pro.jd.com/mall/active/36gmhia34azUPM5HvufNNmwD1xeq/index.html
“The national baby-formula shortage that wreaked havoc for parents created an opening for start-ups competing in the $4 billion market.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/baby-formula-shortage-start-ups.html
Marketing examples taken from this Commentary by Constance Ching: Putting profits before child health: New WHO report will focus on formula companies’ exploitative marketing
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Baby Food industry refuses to follow the Code – industry-inspired BMS Call to Action is concluded
Following the failure of the Breastmilk Substitutes Call to Action (CTA) WHO has informed us that: the industry inspired CTA process has concluded and there are no plans to revisit or extend it. We hope WHO will publicly disassociate itself from this initiative as we asked in IBFAN’s Counter Call in June 2020. Our Counter Call was endorsed and supported by senior UN officials and over 11,000 people on a petition launched by La Leche League International).
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GLOBAL MONITORING GUIDES AND REPORTS:
2019 IBFAN Code Monitoring Kit
Company Profiles
Nestlé BTR 2017
FonteraMilks for mothers ICDC Focus
UNICEF has a free of charge training course. See this descriptive page where people can register.
https://agora.unicef.org/course/view.php?id=12360
2019 CMK Final
Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 2022 WHO UNICEF IBFAN
https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/354221
PRESS RELEASE: Launch of the WHO UNICEF IBFAN Global Code Report. Recordings and presentations
CLICK HERE for examples of how baby food companies are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic
Click here for UK monitoring reports.
Click here for IBFAN comment on the Meridian proposal
CLICK HERE for the Code Monitoring page of IBFAN’s Breastfeeding Promotion Network in India
After watching Tigers, you may be wondering whether the companies are still behaving badly. On this page are links to a number of reports from a range of organisations that show clearly that they are and that children’s health and lives are being threatened by marketing practices promoting baby feeding products.
The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) produces the most extensive, reliable and regular reports of the global situation. We use the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes AND the subsequent, relevant Resolutions of the World Health Assembly as our benchmark, and use our reports to help governments bring in laws to end harmful marketing.
The other reports below also show that bad marketing continues – wherever companies can get away with it.
1 Breaking the Rules Stretching the Rules 2017
A compilation of marketing practices from around the world that violate the International Code over the past 3 years. Collected from IBFAN’s regional and country groups and volunteers, it contains almost 800 legally-vetted entries on 28 companies from 79 countries.
IBFAN’s 11th Global monitoring report. The Executive Summary is Free No
n-profit organisations and affiliated individuals can get a special price: email code(at) ibfan-icdc.org
Breaking the Rules 2014 in Brief is available as a free download.
Special offer on report on Nestle’s Code violations to commemorate the release of tigers
Here is a report that shows the more underhand tactics used by the baby food industry Interference in public health policy: examples of how the baby food industry uses tobacco industry tactics. World Nutrition. 2017 Explains why and how companies lobby against strong legislation.
Don’t Pu
sh it 2018. Save the Children’s report, 2018. Comments from Abbott, Danone, Nestle and RB, which can be found on its website alongside its statements in response.
Dirty Truth about the Formula Industry. Save the Children Sweden and Hacienda. Click here
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9 Update: Based on Science? revisiting Nestlé’s infant milk products and claims. 
2017 Milking It: How Milk Formula Companies Putting Profits Before Science. 2017
Changing Markets Foundation, Utrecht.
Danone Nutricia – Why do they want to be your partner?
WHO UNICEF IBFAN REPORTS ON National implementation of the Code, Status Reports
Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 9 May 2016
Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 2018. 23 May 2018
Countries failing to stop harmful marketing of breast-milk substitutes, warn WHO and UNICEF 2020
IBFAN is a member of the Network for Global Monitoring and Support for Implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and Subsequent relevant World Health Assembly Resolutions (NetCode) – hosted by WHO.
The goal of NetCode is to strengthen Member States’ and civil society capacity to monitor the International Code and relevant WHA resolutions; and to facilitate the development, monitoring and enforcement of national Code legislation by Member States, by bringing together a group of committed actors to support these processes.
Access to Nutrition Foundation – commercially influenced monitoring
BMGF-Funded Access to Nutrition Foundation (ATNF) and its Access to Nutrition Index (ATNI) were designed from the outset to whitewash company promotional activities and encourage investments. ATNI claims to be ‘independent from the companies it assesses’ yet it works closely with them on the methodology and presentation of its results as they described in June 2020: “Like with all ATNI’s work, extensive stakeholder consultations were carried out to help guide our methodology. This was done to ensure the perspectives and expertise of companies, CSOs, investors and ATNI’s expert group were integrated into this rigorous and comprehensive methodology.” Such collaboration is in direct conflict with WHA Resolution 49.15 that calls for monitoring to be “…carried out in a transparent, independent manner, free from commercial influence.” ATNI’s monitoring has inevitably revealed a high level of violations over the years – none of the companies are Code compliant and all score poorly – but its criteria are weak and and serious weaknesses in company policies are overlooked, with the implication that if policies were rolled out globally all would be well. ATNI monitoring is also not continual like IBFAN’s which is able to, for example, quickly expose and curb the exploitation of Covid-19. Nestlé and Danone use ATNI’s flattering analyses repeatedly in their claims of Code compliance.
March 2022. ATNI’s Model Policy, appears stronger in many areas, but opens new loopholes for company donations. Model-policy-on-BMS-marketing-ATNI