DANONE INCREASES ITS DELIVERIES OF INFANT MILK TO THE UNITED STATES
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par Richa Naidu
LONDON (Reuters) – Danone said on Wednesday it had more than doubled its shipments to the United States of Neocate, a food substitute for babies with cow’s milk allergy, since March to help stem a shortage of infant formula.
The United States has been experiencing an unprecedented shortage of baby milk for several months, aggravated by the recall launched in February by the Abbott laboratory of products suspected of having caused the death of two infants.
“We have increased our supply of Neocate everywhere (in the world, editor’s note) (…) Abbott’s recall has affected 38 markets – it’s not just the United States,” Magdalena Broseta told Reuters. , Vice-President of the General Council for Specialized Nutrition at Danone.
“Our factory in Europe serves several markets (…) of course the numbers and volumes and the United States are more important, simply because of the size of the market”, she added, without specifying the quantity of products exported. Danone is the world’s second largest producer of infant milk, behind the Swiss Nestlé, but it remains a minor player in the United States, with less than 5% market share. Asked about a possible launch on the American market of its flagship infant formula Aptamil, Magdalena Broseta indicated that a number of options had been discussed with the American authorities.
Magdalena Broseta added that it was easier to increase deliveries of products already available in the country than to introduce new ones.
(Report Richa Naidu, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Nicolas Delame and Jean-Michel Bélot)
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