Empty shelves: US airlift for baby food from Germany - "It's frustrating"

Created: 05/23/2022, 21:12

By: Lisa Mayerhofer

Almost empty shelves are in the baby food section of a supermarket.

The background to the nationwide bottlenecks is the failure of a factory owned by Abbott, the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the USA.

© Amy Katz/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

There has been a glaring shortage of baby food in the USA for several months.

Now the US Air Force has to provide supplies from Ramstein.

Ramstein – American soldiers are stacking boxes of baby food on a military plane at the Ramstein US base in Rhineland-Palatinate.

However, this does not fly to famine-plagued war zones such as Afghanistan or Yemen - but to the USA.

A US military plane from Germany landed in the state of Indiana on Sunday with more than 31 tons of baby food.

USA: Desperate parents because of lack of baby food

There has been a glaring shortage of baby food and milk powder in the USA for several months.

This mainly affects babies and small children who are dependent on a certain special food due to allergies or illnesses.

Their desperate parents have already turned to hospitals to help them feed their babies, reports US broadcaster CNN.

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Nutritionists at a children's hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, told CNN that at least four babies were recently hospitalized with complications related to the ongoing infant formula shortage.

President Biden announces airlift - baby food from Germany

US President Joe Biden announced last week an airlift to bring in baby food from abroad to meet demand.

The first shipment from Ramstein can meet about 15 percent of immediate needs, the president's economic adviser, Brian Deese, told CNN.

It is Nestlé baby food.

More shipments "will be arriving early in the week," he added.

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For example, a second flight from Ramstein to the USA is scheduled to start in the coming days.

As the White House announced, military aircraft would initially be used because of the urgency because no commercial flights were available at the weekend.

The infant formula was flown to Indiana, where a Nestlé hub is located.

There it will be tested for quality in a nearby laboratory before it is distributed in the country.

Shortage of baby food: Few domestic manufacturers

When asked why baby food could be scarce at all in the USA - one of the richest countries in the world - Deese said: "It's frustrating." The trigger was the failure of a factory of Abbott, the largest manufacturer of infant formula in the USA.

Abbott recalled several product lines after four infants became ill and two died, possibly due to bacterial contamination.

Production at one of the company's plants in the state of Michigan was temporarily halted in February.

The problem: There are hardly any alternatives for US parents, since the baby food comes almost entirely from domestic production - from four major manufacturers.

If one of them fails, bottlenecks can quickly arise.

Mainly because the other manufacturers cannot produce as much baby food either, as the industry has been struggling with supply chain problems and staff shortages since the corona pandemic.

Foreign or European manufacturers ship little or no baby food to the United States because of strict import regulations - which were put in place to protect the domestic economy.

Aid programs dependent on a specific baby food manufacturer

Another reason for the shortage is the dependency of the aid programs for needy families on the manufacturers.

US states contract with a baby food manufacturer for their aid programs, and aid recipients are only allowed to buy their products at a discount.

Low-income families therefore feel the baby food bottleneck the most, as they now have to resort to brands that are much more expensive for them, if they are available at all.

But that should now change with the activated emergency regulation of the US President.

But there is also good news: After an inspection by the food authority, Abbott can resume production.

But it will be weeks before the milk powder is back on the supermarket shelves.