Nestlé dispute continues
The recent commotion over Nestle’s tainted baby milk recall has sparked a row between the company head and the Italian Health Minister. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Nestle’s chief executive officer, has apologised to Italian Health Minister Francesco Storace for a ‘memory lapse’ in a dispute over the recall of baby milk.
However, Storace has replied the apology was insufficient and threatened legal action.The row was triggered over Brabeck’s admission that he had incorrectly said a meeting between Italian authorities and Nestle had occurred in July or August, when it actually took place in September. The mistake led to criticism of Storace that he had known about the formula’s contamination and had done nothing.
Brabeck says the error occurred in a conference with 600 investors and reporters in which he upset Italian officials by correcting what he said were “false and misleading” recall figures given by Italian police.
“It was a shock to be confronted with pictures of Italian police, under the prosecutor’s order, seizing Nestle’s products on television, as if these were criminal in origin,” he notes. “This was compounded by alarmist and market-relevant information of the seizure of 30 million litres of milk, when Nestle sells no more than 12.5 million litres per year on the Italian market.”
He also claims that false information from an official spokesperson of a governmental authority provoked “an immediate reaction on the stock exchange.”
Reports about an agreement between Nestle and the ministry last July that the contaminated baby milk should be sold off while the packaging was being changed provoked an angry response from Storace, who says the Health Ministry had delivered their complaint to Italy’s Carabinieri police over Brabeck’s “false and offensive” comments.
“He will have to respond on this anyway in court,” said Storace in a statement rejecting the apology letter. “The head of a multinational cannot be allowed to sling mud at Italian institutions without paying.”
Meanwhile, Nestle continues to cause waves, with an announcement by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) in China saying the country has never imported the contaminated Nestle milk products. The AQSIQ has also called for a ban on these types of milk products. Mailing of such milk products is prohibited and any carried by inbound travellers will be confiscated.
Nestle recalled its liquid milk products from France, Portugal, and Italy, because traces of ITX were found in them. All the contaminated milk products were produced in the Netherlands and packed in Spain.
