The White House has milk on the fire. Literally and figuratively. In an attempt to solve the shortage of baby milk in the United States, Joe Biden is using big means. The American president announced, Wednesday, May 18, the establishment of an airlift. The Ministry of Defense “will use its contracts with commercial cargo airlines, as it did during the first months of the Covid pandemic, to transport products from factories overseas”, said the US administration (link in English).
Joe Biden also uses a law dating from the Cold War, the “Defense Production Act”, in order to require the producers of the ingredients necessary for the production of infant milk to give priority to the manufacturers of this essential commodity for the parents of young children. This project, called operation Fly Formula (“Flight of powdered milk”in French), will allow“accelerate the importation and distribution of baby milk”providing support to “manufacturers who continue to increase their production”.
Nestlé will ship milk from Europe
Initially caused by problems in those same supply chains and a lack of labor due to the pandemic, the shortage of baby milk was made worse by the closure in February of a factory of the manufacturer Abbott in Michigan. , after a recall of products suspected of having caused the death of two infants.
The American drug agency (FDA) ended up clearing the milk, but it took until Monday for Abbott to reach an agreement with American justice in order to be able to restart production at this factory. This very rare shortage of this essential product for many parents has turned into a political crisis for the Democratic president, much criticized by the Republican opposition.
The food group Nestlé, which has two factories in the United States for the production of infant milk, had already announced on Tuesday its intention to send additional quantities of this product by plane to the United States, from Switzerland and the Netherlands. Low. According to data provider Datasembly, the stock-out rate of infant formula had reached 43% by the end of last week in the United States.