The boycott expanded into Europe in the early 1980s and was prompted by concerns about Nestlé's aggressive marketing of infant formulas (i.e., substitutes for breast milk), particularly in underdeveloped countries.
[1][2] The boycott has been cancelled and renewed because of the business practices of Nestlé and other substitute manufacturers monitored by the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN).
Consumers were basically acting as global citizens by aiding people in need outside their close communities – mothers in developing countries – "using the marketplace not as a way of generating revenue, but rather as a space for protest".
[25] The company not only made use of mass media promotion (e.g. billboards and posters) and sample distributions, they also had sales people dressed as so-called "milk nurses" to visit mothers in hospital and at their home to praise formula and its benefits.
[10][28] Nestlé's marketing strategy was first written about in New Internationalist magazine in 1973 and in a booklet called The Baby Killer, published by the British NGO War On Want in 1974.
The report helped raise concern over marketing practices in developing countries and served as the starting point of the so-called Baby Killer campaign.
[31] This led to similar court challenges brought against other milk companies in the U.S. spearheaded by the Roman Catholic order Sisters of the Precious Blood in conjunction with the Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility.
[27][10] In May 1978, the US Senate held a public hearing into the promotion of breast milk substitutes in developing countries and joined calls for a Marketing Code.
[24] In 1981, the 34th World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body for WHO, adopted Resolution WHA34.22 which includes the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.
Evidence was presented by the IBFAN group from Pakistan and UNICEF's legal officer commented on Nestlé's failure to bring its policies into line with the World Health Assembly Resolutions.
Nestlé declined an invitation to attend, claiming scheduling conflicts, although it sent a representative of the auditing company it had commissioned to produce a report on its Pakistan operation.
[46] In a 2018 study, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) estimated that 10,870,000 infants had died between 1960 and 2015 as a result of Nestlé baby formula used by "mothers [in low and middle-income countries] without clean water sources", with deaths peaking at 212,000 in 1981.
IBFAN continues to be an international network, encompassing more than 270 groups in over 160 countries who push for implementations of the marketing of breast-milk substitutes Code and relevant resolutions.
[59][60][61] An episode of the TV show The Mark Thomas Comedy Product produced by the British Channel Four in 1999 investigated the boycott and Nestlé's practices concerning baby milk.