28: The Many Crimes of The Nestle Company
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Alright, hi friends. How are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to the Library of Dark History. That's right, baby. Oh, my nail just popped off. You know what? We're just going to put it back on. Everything's fine, everyone. Great. This is a safe space for you.

For all the curious cats out there who are like, hey, is history really as boring as it seemed in high school or school or whatever? Oh, nay, nay. Let me tell you, this is where we can learn together about all the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories that maybe we just didn't learn about in school. It's fun. It's a good time. Now, let me tell you something. If I seem a little dead today, that's because I have bad cramps and my insides are currently taken over by the devil. So if I seem a little dead, let me tell you,

It's not me. It's the body. Okay? Thank you so much. So let me tell you, rabbit hole. I went down one. I was drinking a bottled water. This was like a little bit ago. Okay? And normally I don't drink bottled water. I have my little like canteen, whatever, that I use, but I forgot it. So I was drinking this bottled water and it tasted so weird. I was like, this water just tastes funny. And I was like,

Still really thirsty after drinking the water. It wasn't quenching my thirst. So I looked at it and by Nestle, okay, I looked at the ingredients and it said it had salt and sugar in this bottled water. Now, some of you may remember this because on Twitter, I was like, dude, why does this water taste like that?

And everybody was schooling me on how they put sugar and salt in bottled water. This was new news to me. I had no idea, okay? Wow, hello. I had my blindfolds on, my little blinders. No idea. So I went down this whole rabbit hole of like,

Why is there sugar and salt in bottled water? Hello? So I started Googling and let me tell you, of course, all these doors started opening and I was like, oh God, it's so much worse than I thought. So then I ended up zeroing in.

on the Nestle company. And when I tell you Nestle is basically the Disney villain type of bad, it's more than just candy that we're talking about here. Nestle is out here just trying to take over the universe, I think. And I don't know, I wasn't paying attention at least. Nestle, bad, what are you doing? Nestle, no, stop it. They do make good chocolate milk though, I won't lie, but no.

So where does this story start? Let me tell you. It starts with puppies. Yes! Sweet, innocent, baby little puppies. You know, who could do no wrong? Puppies! But then, you know, it's going to take a left-hand turn per use, so don't get too excited about cute puppies.

So we're going back to the year 2015 and we're in Berkeley, California. Now there's this guy named Frank who has a pretty typical life. He's got a wife, a big old house, and he's out there just living the American dream. He also has a few dogs. He's got a German Shepherd, an English Bulldog, and a Labrador. Now one day, Frank starts noticing something a little weird. His German Shepherd is losing fur. And not just a normal amount of fur, he is losing a lot of fur.

And on top of that, his little doggy companion friend is acting very, very strange. I mean, we're talking like he seems majorly depressed, his dog.

And to make matters worse, the puppy, the pup, the little young little cutie patootie starts vomiting uncontrollably. Now, Frank is concerned. I mean, who wouldn't be? So he goes to the vet and his vet's like, yeah, I don't know what's going on with your dog. But the vet's only theory is that maybe the poor dog has been poisoned.

Either way, there isn't much of a treatment to help the dog. So Frank takes his sick little pup home and just really hopes for the best. But a week later, one of Frank's other dogs, his English Bulldog, suddenly dies out of nowhere. I mean, no warning, nothing, just falls over, plop, dead. So that's one of Frank's dogs who is super sick, and another one just ends up dead.

Now the vet performs an autopsy on the bulldog and finds signs of internal bleeding and liver failure. And you know what's interesting? The symptoms are very similar to what had been going on with the German Shepherd. But unfortunately, it's not over for Frank and his dogs because just a few days later, the Labrador gets sick. They are just going like flies. At this point, Frank's really worried. I mean, why are all of his babies getting sick and dying?

The vet doesn't have any answers. So Frank pulls a Bailey and turns to Google for something, some kind of answer. So Frank starts Googling and the only thing he thinks to Google is maybe the brand of his dog's food, Purina Beneful. He's like beep bop boop. And at first, Frank didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. He found the website for the brand in a Facebook page that had over like a million likes. So it was kind of turning out to be a dead end.

But then he found a website that posted product reviews that had a page with 708 one-star ratings for the Purina Beneful food. These reviews were freaking horrific. They had descriptions of dogs going through the exact same thing as Frank's pets were going through.

So as many of us would be, Frank was filled with his emotions. I mean, he needed to do something fast. This food that is supposed to be nurturing and take care of your dog may be doing something really awful to his dogs. So he contacts a lawyer who decided to check it out for himself. He ended up finding over 4,000 others who were experiencing the same thing.

So the lawyer asked Frank, like, hey, are you interested in doing or joining a class action lawsuit? And Frank quickly agrees. Now it turns out Purina Beneful dog food contain fungal mold, lupus,

lead, arsenic, and something called industrial-grade glycols, which is essentially an ingredient found in antifreeze, antifreeze, sorry, anti, anti, whatever. In other words, literally eating poison.

Someone is aqua-tafani-ing the dogs. What is happening? According to the FDA, the toxin levels did not exceed allowable limits for humans. You see, the limits were never actually set for dogs.

Now, Frank wasn't the first person to blow the whistle on Purina. He's just one of the most recent examples in a long history of shady dealings. Because what if I told you the problem isn't just with Purina? Oh no. This goes all the way to the top, baby. To the company that owns Purina, the Nestle Corporation. We're coming for you.

Get him. Get him, Joan. We're coming for you, Nestle, and your goddamn good freaking chocolate milk. Poisoning our dogs. How could you? We trusted you. Now, when I tell you Nestle's past is dark, I mean, that's putting it very lightly. Mm-hmm. Scandals like Frank's story have been happening under Nestle's watch for decades. Like, let's put them up there with DuPont. Remember DuPont? We're looking at you, piece of shit.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's start at the beginning. Let's go back to the beginning. I know, you're sick of it, but whatever. Let me get my book. Joan, we're going to turn to the chapter about Nestle and their little shenanigans that are killing us per use. What's new? I don't know why they're trying to kill us. We're their customers. Why are they trying to kill us? Who's going to buy your shit when we're all dead? Think about it. Exactly.

Okay, anyways. Oh my god, look! I turned to the page where like, it's like someone's dead. So, okay. Anyway, um, carry on. Tiptoe. Carry on. Okay.

There you go. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. Nestle was started by a German pharmacist named Henry Nestle. Now, this man was born in 1814.

There's really not much known about Henry's early life, but it was said that he was a salesman slash scientist that was constantly chasing the next big thing. At different points in his life, he sold oils, cement, mustard,

mineral water. But nothing really seemed to like catch on for him. He was just kind of like dabbling around. But then one day in 1866, Henry's reading the news when he sees that reports of infant mortality are at an all-time high. Many women at the time couldn't breastfeed, so some kind of substitute to breast milk could potentially save a lot of babies' lives. So he started reading reports about breast milk.

And he began conducting experiments with milk, bread, and sugar. I'm sure that's why he went to it, to help the babies, not because titties. Then in 1867, Henry hit the jackpot by creating something called farine lacti. Sounds exciting, right? I know. Well, it's just flour milk. So, okay, what's so special about that, Bailey?

Well, this flour milk was one of the very first recipes anybody had ever made for baby formula.

Okay, right? Yeah, that's good. He started selling it almost immediately after he invented it, advertising his product as something that could be given to babies who couldn't be breastfed. And it worked. I mean, this was finally Henry Nestle's big break. And suddenly his flour milk formula became popular all over Europe. I mean, this is a really great thing, right? Great. We love this for us.

This led to the creation of the entire baby food industry, with Henry as the face of success. Oh, bravo, Henry. And this very same year, 1867, Henry shared his recipe with a Swiss chocolate maker. Oh.

Oh yeah, and it turns out if you mixed Henry's condensed milk recipe with chocolate, you got a smooth, sweet, delicious treat. Basically, this is the invention of milk chocolate as we know it. Bravo!

We should have just ended it there. So after this, Henry and the chocolate maker decide to go into business together. Baby food and chocolate? Oh, it's like perfect. It's a match made in heaven. And this combination of products made Henry so rich that he decided to go out on top and sells his stake in the company in 1875.

So it's around this point that Nestle's history starts to get a little bit more mysterious. Instead of there being an obvious head of the Nestle company, suddenly there's an entire board of directors. By 1905, Nestle had merged with so many other companies that they just became known as the Nestle Group. No one really knows who that was, but the Nestle Group.

When World War I broke out in 1914, there was an increased demand in the U.S. for powdered milk for soldiers. So Nestle opened offices in the United States to do just that.

And then when the Great Depression happened, Nestle found a way to make cheap coffee. And in World War II, Nestle was able to stay afloat when most other international corporations were suffering because Switzerland was a neutral territory. Basically, every time a major event hit Earth, Nestle found a way to profit and grow from it. And as they grew and became more successful, they swallowed up even more companies.

So by the 1970s, the Nestle group had their hands in everything from more coffee to TV dinners to makeup. By this time, Nestle basically owned everything. And if Nestle had just stopped at owning everything, well, this episode wouldn't exist, okay? So now it's 1974. Nestle had their first real controversy. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Their biggest seller at the time was still baby formula, but their profits were kind of, they're evening out. They needed to find a way to start selling more formula. So they decided to market the formula as a necessity. I'm using quotes here. Necessity that was better than breastfeeding. Now this was a departure from old Henry who originally pitched formula as something to use if you couldn't breastfeed.

It went from an alternative option to really the only option for many women. Nestle even deployed saleswomen dressed up in nurses' uniforms to walk the halls of maternity wards, giving away free samples and other gifts to convince mothers that formula was healthier than breast milk. These quote-unquote nurses were paid on commission, which meant the more formula they sold, the more money they made. So, I mean...

You think they're gonna sit around and do nothing? No. So some of you may be thinking, well, okay, Bailey, what's so bad about that? Well, if you're not happy with the formula, you could just go back to breastfeeding. The problem is the longer a woman goes without breastfeeding, the harder it becomes for her to lactate.

So by the time they figured out Nestle was selling them a load of BS, it was too late. They could no longer make their own milk and they honestly needed the formula. And that's only if the women even figured out that this was a load of BS. Now Nestle sees how successful this new marketing campaign has been and they decide to make it global, worldwide. They expand their marketing into developing countries and start selling baby formula there too.

By definition, a developing country is one with limited resources, things like food, money, and water. The last one becomes really important when you're trying to convince people to replace breastfeeding with formula. Why? Well, you mix baby formula with water for it to become something the baby can drink.

So convincing people to only use baby formula in a place where clean water is in short supply is not the greatest idea or the greatest plan. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts.

discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

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So later that year in 1974, a bombshell expose called The Baby Killer came out. It was all about multiple companies selling baby formula and their questionable practices. Aside from stating what we already know, like how a formula requires water, the report said that in developing countries, the water that's available is contaminated. So the water being used to mix the formula was contaminated.

But as the report goes on, there's a whole section specifically about Nestle and the fact that they didn't care that there wasn't clean water in developing countries. The instructions in the Nestle mother book say, quote, end quote. But 66% of the households at the time in the country of Malawi didn't even have washing facilities of any kind and even less people had a freaking kitchen.

The book further states to, quote, place a bottle and lid in a saucepan of water and bring to a boil for 10 minutes on an electric stove. But most West African women at the time didn't even have an electric stove and did their cooking in a pot over a wood fire.

When the authors of The Baby Killer pointed all this out to Nestle, they pretty much ignored what the report pointed out and continued to push their formula in developing countries. So what do you think happened when these mothers in developing countries continued to mix Nestle's baby formula with contaminated water? Question mark? Well, their babies started getting sick.

And to make an awful situation even worse, sometimes, when money got tight, mothers would use less formula to make it last even longer. This meant that even if their water wasn't contaminated, using less of the formula could still lead to malnutrition and illness. So instead of creating a solution, Nestle created a whole new set of problems.

Thanks, Nestle. After the report came out, doctors noticed infant mortality rates and malnutrition increasing in countries where the formula was being sold. So Nestle stopped selling their formula, right?

No. You see, there weren't any regulations in place to prevent Nestle's false advertising. So instead of recognizing the problems they created, Nestle doubles down and keeps advertising the formula the same way they did before the report even came out. But more and more people started reading The Baby Killer.

They see this big-ass company basically making money off of ruining the lives of innocent babies. And this makes everybody piss the frick off. So in 1975, people took to the streets to protest Nestle, and instantly their sales started to dip. So to address the concerns, Nestle joined with all the other heavy hitters in the infant formula industry to form the International Council of Infant Food Industries.

This organization announced a set of rules to try and address the criticisms people had. First,

Milk nurses. The fake nurses who walked around hospitals pushing the formula would no longer be paid on commission. Second, they had to wear a pin that demonstrated who they were so nobody could confuse them for real medical professionals. And finally, they agreed to cut down on all the formula commercials. I mean, this was a start, but these rules were extremely weak and they were honestly very easy to get around. I mean, a company who's getting caught doing grimy shit

is now allowed to make their own rules and quote unquote fix it, of course they're going to build in ways to get around these rules. So honestly, nothing really changed.

Around 1977, a group called the Infant Formula Action Coalition, or INFACT for short, started to fix this. Now this group called for a complete boycott of Nestle's marketing of infant formula in developing countries. This boycott started in Minnesota and it really blew up from there. It spread to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Europe.

It even got attention of major U.S. politicians like Ted Kennedy and the World Health Organization, or WHO. Then in 1981, the WHO created a special code that would officially prevent Nestle from promoting false advertising. The code would have been great, but the United States president at the time, Ronald Reagan, he refused to adopt it. He thought Americans should have the freedom to do whatever they want.

including marketing crappy products and feeding them to their babies. He's like, yeah, that's a great idea. Freedom. But the boycott continued and finally started hurting Nestle where it counted. After all the bad press and the loss of revenue, Nestle finally agreed to follow the WHO code. I sound like a damn owl. Who?

And then Nestle became a wonderful company that changed their focus to creating world peace and giving everyone on earth free chocolate bars. Psyche lol. This is dark history. We know that's not where this story is going.

So remember earlier when I said Nestle owned companies all over the world? Well, it turns out during all the baby formula stuff, Nestle was covering up some pretty ugly secrets with some of their other companies. Because all this bad shit was happening at the same time, the timeline gets a little blurred, a little foggy. So we'll be jumping from scandal to scandal, but just know like this is all happening at the same time pretty much. So now I'm going to introduce you to a guy named Luciano Romero.

Luciano, Luciano, Luciano was a member of a union, which is an organization that tries to improve the working conditions for employees. And his union oversaw conditions at a milk factory that Nestle co-owned in Columbia with a company named Sikolak. Now this union that Luciano was in wasn't small time. They were the Sinaltranal Trade Union.

Sure. What does that mean? I don't know. They were used to take on major companies. They once tried to sue Coca-Cola, okay? They're not trying to fuck around this company. They're trying to take down the big people. We love that for us. Go them. I say them because I can't pronounce their names.

They should do something a little bit more catchy, something that flows a little bit easier, but that's okay. Enough about me. Anyway, the most important thing to know about this factory is that they had close ties with a paramilitary group, which is a kind of private police force with tanks. Great. And this police force does whatever their employer asks. So the union was causing a lot of noise in the factories and starting to get on the nerves of the paramilitary groups.

And our guy, Luciano, was leading the charge. I'm laughing because I'm struggling really hard. This wasn't exactly the safest move because these paramilitary groups have a history of assassinating union leaders. This is getting sloppy, okay? Luciano was trying to get the government to support him and the labor laws that existed in Colombia, but quickly became clear that the government was in cahoots with the paramilitary groups.

Why? Because money, bitch. Hi, are you new? Money, money, money, money, money, money. Colombia's government was known to be very corrupt at this time, and they would look the other way as the unions were constantly attacked by the paramilitary groups. Between 1986 and 2010, there were 10,000 attacks on union members, including nearly 3,000 murders. If we do math here, beep bop boop boop boop, they killed 30% of the people they attacked.

As Luciano pushed on, he quickly realized he was being targeted. He was getting death threats, being followed around. He couldn't live like a normal life anymore, okay? And then on September 10th, 2005, Luciano was kidnapped, tortured, and then murdered by the paramilitary members.

After Luciano died, there was an investigation into the assassination. And it wasn't just the local law enforcement and prosecution looking into this. It was investigated by both the Colombian and the Swiss government. I mean, it was huge. And everyone who looked into it found that Nestle had involvement in the whole thing.

I'm laughing because what the hell is going on? I don't know. The investigation uncovered that Nestle knew Luciano was in danger. And before he died, Luciano had informed Nestle that he was receiving death threats. And Nestle refused to help him. Nestle is a global company. So they were required by international law to protect him. And they just straight up were like, okay.

No, and ignored it. So, Nestle was held accountable, right? Of course not. Why would they? A human rights organization sued Nestle for their involvement in Luciano's death, but the case was dismissed in 2014. And as we've all seen before, just because a case is dismissed doesn't mean that they're necessarily innocent. The legal advisor for the European Center for Human Rights argues this case being dismissed shows...

that huge companies like Nestle are intentionally too complex to be held accountable. I mean, if we're being honest,

Too big for accountability is actually the best way to describe any corporation, and not just Nestle. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year so you're protected no matter what.

This is an ad by BetterHelp.com.

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month.

That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash dark history. But unlike many other corporations, Nestle has more of a paper trail to follow. And the deeper you dig, the worse things keep looking for Nestle. Because on top of poison dog food, messed up baby formula, and the murder of a union leader, Nestle is now coming for your water. Oh, yes, they are. So in 2005, the CEO of Nestle, his name's Peter Brabeck,

Yeah. He said, it's a little extreme to call water a human right. He's wild, this Peter guy. He said, quote, water is a foodstuff like any other. And like any other foodstuff, it should have a market value. Translation, we should be allowed to make money off of water, even though it's a free resource. How can it be profited off of? Now,

Now to be fair, Peter said later that he was only pointing out that water should have some kind of monetary value and not that he was saying water isn't a human right.

But why would Nestle care about water so much anyways? Well, some of the many companies Nestle owns produce bottled water. So this whole thing is starting to get a little suspish. Okay, let's jump back really quick to 1949. A little bit of context here.

Back in 1949, the United Nations declared access to a reasonable standard of living as a human right. It is your right to have reasonable standards of living. That makes sense. Yeah, we should have that. And having clean water definitely fell under a reasonable standard of living. And on paper, Nestle agrees. They're like, yeah, for sure.

But here's the problem. Nestle owns and distributes over 51 brands of bottled water in various countries all over the world, which earns them more than $7.8 million per year. So corporations like Nestle have little to no incentive to actually protect the sustainability of any water supply. Because if a place can get clean water from their own natural resources, why would they ever need to buy bottled water?

So a way around this is to start buying up natural water supplies, which is what Nestle would do. They would start buying up the bottling rights so that they would essentially own the water. This means they controlled what happened to the water, which makes it very easy to make it inaccessible to the people who lived nearby and needed that water. Now, this is technically not illegal. It's highly unethical, but it's not illegal, right?

Nestle could go to a place like Flint, Michigan and pay for a permit that gives them the rights to the city's water. And with that permit, Nestle could do pretty much whatever they wanted with said water.

And if Nestle didn't want to give the people access to this water source, the people would then need to get bottled water. And this is exactly what they did. And it leads us to Nestle's part in the Flint water crisis. What a fucking mess, is it not? Now, the Flint water crisis is still a developing story. And we could do a whole episode on Flint, Michigan, like their water situation because it's a whole shady ass mess.

But here's what we do know. In 2014, Flint, Michigan switched their tap water source to the Flint River, which was a dumping site for chemicals used in the car manufacturing. Even back then, people warned Governor Rick Snyder that this was a really bad idea, but he wanted to cut the cost of the city's ballooning water budget. And even though the Flint River was super polluted, Governor Rick was hoping to switch the water back before anyone even noticed.

But he quickly discovered how much cheaper it was to keep the water flowing out of the polluted source and decided to quietly cancel the plans to find a better one. As you might imagine, polluted water is not safe to drink and people started getting extremely sick.

On top of that, nobody was able to take showers, cook, do laundry, or do the dishes. Cancer rates have risen in the area because of the poisoned water supply. There were so many political cover-ups and people sneaking around trying to hide how bad all this was that it cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars. Way more than it would have cost if they just gave people clean water in the first place.

And while everyone was yelling at the politicians about the crisis, Nestle saw a business opportunity. Nestle had found a clean water source right next to Flint. And instead of doing something with their billions of dollars to help their residents, they paid a tiny fee of $200 per year to get the bottling rights to this water source.

And once they bottled it, they started selling it back to the residents of Flint. Now, a lot of Flint residents were already paying $200 per month for their water bills for the polluted water. And then on top of that, now they were having to buy bottled water from Nestle. Once people started to notice that Nestle was doing this, they called them out, okay? So Nestle did end up giving a lot of the water back to the community. But we are not going to celebrate that because it was the community's water to begin with.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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poisoned dog food, unsanitary baby formula, the murder of a union leader, the privatization of water, but surprise, surprise, it keeps getting worse. Nestle just comes out with more and more hits, okay?

In 1998, an African newspaper reported that a bunch of work on the local cocoa plantations was being done by enslaved young boys. And who owned the plantations? Oh, I'll let you guess here. Nestle. The Nestle cocoa plantation was being run by enslaved children. Some sold for as little as $140. Remember, this isn't 1860 shit. The

This was 1998. I mean, not that it would have been better, but you know what I'm saying. Like, hello? The United States government reported that about 15,000 children were working on cocoa and coffee plantations that supplied the Nestle company. Most of these kids were under the age of 12 and some were as young as five years old. Not all of them were enslaved. Some of these children were paid $135.

Thanks. Well, you know, like, is that supposed to make us feel better? I guess so. I don't know. I'm sure Nestle's patting themselves on the back like, we fucking did it. Yeah. Word of this started to spread. A few documentaries were made and articles were written. And once again, Nestle's in the spotlight.

The United States government pitched a few ideas for how to end child labor abuses. And the cocoa industry, including Nestle, they agreed to take steps to reduce child labor by 70% by 2015. That's right. They're like, we'll reduce child labor, not stop it.

Okay? We're just going to like tone it down a little bit. And even though they are quote unquote trying to reduce child labor, some economists say that to this day Nestle hasn't actually started the process at all. Great. Man, I freaking love that chocolate milk, but I fucking hate it now. I fucking hate it.

Whenever someone calls up Nestle and asks a representative if they're still using child slave labor, they say it's impossible to completely keep track of what's going down on their plantations. It's fucking weird, right? It's not like Nestle misplaced a few chocolate bars or whatever. They straight up can't keep track of what are the farms they use to make cocoa have enslaved children working on them. I don't know, just an idea. Why don't you go down and visit the farms and see what's going on in your company?

I don't know, just an idea though. People don't come to me for these ideas. But there are even more scandals from Nestle. Yes, there's even more than child labor and slavery. It turns out the building of the cocoa plantations directly contributes to the illegal cutting down of trees all over Africa, which is linked to a drop in population for a number of animals such as chimps and elephants.

There was also that time in 2008 when Nestle used a sketchy chemical to make their milk look like it had more protein than it really did in China. This stunt was dangerous enough to hospitalize 54,000 babies. Then in 2009, there was an E. coli outbreak linked to their cookie dough.

Fuck, I love cookie dough. And a few years later, one of their noodle companies was found to have a fucking lead in the noodles. I mean, the list just goes on. Nestle does not give a shit about you, okay? They do not. I bet you the CEO of Nestle doesn't even eat their own products. I would bet you. I would bet you. Anyways, maybe you've heard of Nestle's healthy hydration campaign. Oh yeah, healthy hydration.

Great. They try to spin this idea that bottled water is eco-friendly and that every bottle gets recycled. Now this idea sounds cool until Nestle admitted that most of their bottles end up in landfills. It drives me nuts when they tell us that it's our responsibility to recycle. Recycle, reuse, reuse. You know, it is important that we recycle and do our part, but why don't these companies stop making this trash?

Hello? Why don't we hold these companies accountable and not one another? You know what I'm saying? Like it's not, it's not, why don't they not make the trash in the first place? Anyways, just an idea. Again, no one comes to me. That's fine. Okay, so let's circle back to our good friend Frank. Remember him? The dog food guy?

So a few years after he managed to get that big-ass lawsuit set up against Purina, the courts dismissed the whole thing, saying there simply wasn't enough evidence proving that over 4,000 dogs were being poisoned after eating Purina Beneful. Now this meant Nestle couldn't be held accountable at all.

And if you've been paying attention today, you're probably not surprised. But if you want some kind of silver lining to the story, we have one, just one for you. Her name is Dr. Yasmin. In 2000, she worked as a high ranking food executive at Nestle when she discovered that Nestle's food safety controls were lacking a bit.

She also saw other major issues in the supply chain that made the food at high risk for contamination. So she raised these issues with her boss in 2003, but she got ignored.

She was determined though, and she kept alerting her bosses at every chance she got until she was fired from her job in 2010. They're like, shut up, you're talking too much. So after she got fired, she took Nestle to court for firing her illegally, and she actually won. But according to Yasmin, the culture of fear at Nestle left her traumatized. She

She has since become an advocate for stronger whistleblower protections globally. If you Google Nestle whistleblower, it brings you to a site called Nestle Speak Up.

Because this company has so many issues, they've had to set up a freaking whole website which allows people to contact them and like whistleblow. Using numbers from this site in 2020, they received over 1,600 internal complaints relating to abuse of power, harassment, bullying, labor practices, and freaking fraud.

And these are just internal numbers. The site received 1,681 messages from outside the company. Okay, so this might sound or look responsible on Nestle's part, but if you look at it from another way, you could see it's their attempt to control the narrative. They would much rather you just go to their website and give them all the details of how deplorable

their being, that way they can cover up before any of this information goes public. Or maybe not. Maybe there's a world in which they are finally trying to do right by the people. But let's not hold our freaking breath, okay? Have you been paying attention? Nestle, you suck. Everything sucks.

In conclusion, Nestle has a history of abuse, false advertising, child labor happening, exploitation, being tied to murders, poisoning people, trying to own all of the water, and then acting like that's normal, playing God. They are trying to own all of us, poisoning us all, and then for what? For money?

Is this not the stupidest place ever? But when you look at what Nestle owns, bitch, let me tell you, Nestle owns everything. We are so screwed. What do we do? Panic.

Just breathe. I wish I had a solution or an answer here. I think when we really pay attention to what these big companies are doing, a lot of the times we're going to uncover some very shady shit. They are always cutting corners to fill their pockets and then we'll do whatever it takes to make money. It's really gross and I'm sorry that this is the way it is. So what do we do? What do we do now?

How can I end this in like a positive? Because I'm really sorry to like dump all this on you. I guess the positive takeaway here is that it started out good. I was just trying to help, you know, feed some babies. That was nice. Cool. Yay. So anyways, I'll let you enjoy your Crunch Bar.

I'm an Almond Joy kind of girl. Is that Nestle? Let me know down below. I'm really sorry to kind of end it on such a Debbie Downer. I wish I had something like a call to action. Like, here's what we can do. But you know, girl, I'm drawing blanks right now. I'm drawing blanks because it's like, what can we do? Besides fucking burn it all down. But legally, I don't think I can say that. I'm probably going to be sued. Actually, I'm probably going to get murdered. So if I don't come back, it's probably Nestle that did it. You know what I'm saying?

Joan, they're coming for us. Anyways, I hope you have a good day today. You make good choices. And don't forget, you know, Nestle socks. Okay? And let me...

Let me close my book. This has been a very dark chapter. Thank you so much for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to be nosy either. Look into these shady ass companies, okay? I would love to hear your thoughts about this story. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history on social media so I can follow along. If I disappear, it was probably Nestle.

Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And also you can check out my Murder Mystery makeup, which drops on Mondays. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. And I hope to be talking to you next week. We'll see. Bye.

Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kim Jacobs, Junya McNeely from 3Arts, Ed Simpson, and Claire Turner from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kiven. Research provided by Thomas Messersmith.

Writers, Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, Joy Scavuzzo, Kim Yageed, and me, Bailey Sarian. A big thank you to our historical consultant on today's episode, Professor George Kent. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Fuck these nails. They are all gone. This whole hand is gone.