Ice Cream, Candy Bars, And The Nestle Boycott
As you may have noticed if you have been to the gym recently, we now have a freezer with ice cream treats for sale. These include popsicles, ice cream bars and cones of various kinds, and Magnum bars. We think everyone deserves a reward after climbing!
While looking into ice cream suppliers, I became aware of the ongoing boycott of Nestle products. Nestle is accused of some unscrupulous business practices related to how they promote the use of their baby formula in developing nations. I had heard something about this years ago, but thought it was over and done with. Indeed, if you listen to Nestle, they claim that they have fixed all the problems. When one of our customers asked that we not choose Nestle as our ice cream supplier, I looked into it more thoroughly. My conclusion after some research is that Nestle is indeed doing some things I’m very uncomfortable with, and as a result I have decided to join the boycott of Nestle products.
So we have chosen Breyers as our ice cream supplier, and the treats they have filled our freezer with are pretty yummy. In addition we have switched from the Nestle candy bars we were selling (Coffee Crisp, Aero, Smarties, Kit Kat) to a new assortment including Mars, M&Ms, Twix and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
The action of choosing to boycott Nestle products was not made lightly. There are lots of companies doing things that one group or another find objectionable, and I’ve seen attempts to boycott that I did not find compelling. In general I try to keep the business apolitical (and independent of my own personal political views), but in this case I find the case for a boycott convincing.
on Jan 19th, 2012
at 1:02 pm
Interesting… and I’m curious about your decision to sell ice cream in the first place? When I think of climbing, i connect it with a deep respect for out bodies, and for the environment. There’s a sense of looking after ourselves and our world that is inherent in the climbing philosophy. Environmental impacts aside, I’m curious if in your decision you took into account that Breyer’s uses rBGH in its ice cream, a synthetic hormone linked to many types of cancers?
Not trying to fear-monger here, just inviting some food for thought….
on Jan 19th, 2012
at 1:07 pm
Your consumer conciousness efforts are appreciated, keep it up!
on Jan 20th, 2012
at 9:11 am
Hi Rebecca,
I was not aware of the rBGH issue, but certainly I won’t argue that ice cream is a particularly healthy food. We expect our customers to make their own choices about what they put in their bodies. My feeling is that a little ice cream once in a while is a nice treat.