U.S. organises Germany-to-Texas flight with Nestlé baby formula
The Hindu
Deliveries of Nestlé formula to the United States would be made in the coming days when an organised flight packed with 110,000 pounds of the baby formula flies from Germany to Texas on June 9
The United States has organised a flight to deliver 110,000 pounds of Nestlé infant formula from Germany to Texas on June 9, the White House said on Monday.
The formula, an equivalent of roughly 1.6 million 8-ounce bottles, will be made available nationwide and further announcements of deliveries of Nestlé formula would be made in the coming days, it said.
“We aren’t letting up until we solve this problem, and we are working to ensure more safe [baby] formula is available on store shelves nationwide,” President Joe Biden said in a statement given to Reuters.
Biden said nearly 10 million bottles of safe infant baby formula would be brought into the country to be sold nationwide in the next two weeks.
“There’s more work to do, but we’re making progress and in the past two weeks, infant [baby] formula sales broke post-pandemic records,” he said.
The shortage of infant baby formula has become a potent political problem for Biden, who is also struggling to address concerns about high U.S. inflation ahead of the November mid-term elections.
Biden’s Operation Fly Formula has delivered 1.5 million “bottle equivalents” of Nestlé baby formula and has arranged to get 8.3 million from Bubs Australia and Kendamil, the White House said.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.