A distraught mother-of-two who is infuriated by the cost of feeding her baby has backed the idea of a price cap on all infant formula milk.
Hertfordshire mum Kerry Redmond, 27, spoke to Sky News about the dread she now feels walking into a supermarket to buy formula.
It comes as:
Ms Redmond told Sky News: “You feel uncomfortable even walking down the baby aisle looking at the baby milk because the staff think ‘oh they are going to nick that’.”
“It happened recently… I paid for my milk, and I went out the shop and the security guard followed me to the car because he thought I had nicked that milk and I had the receipt in my hand.
“You are treated as a criminal just because you want to go and buy baby milk.”
The mum-of-two is so infuriated by the situations where some families are resorting to unsafe feeding that she has started a petition calling on the government to intervene to help UK parents.
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“When your child is hungry,” she said, “I would go to the end of the world and back to feed my kids but with everything going up it’s just not physically possible.
“It’s disgusting, I’m appalled by it. They have to do something.”
A Sky News investigation into the effects of price rises for formula milk found that parents are taking more extreme steps to feed their babies – including watering down feeds, substituting formula with condensed milk, stealing from the shops or buying open second-hand tubs of formula online.
Charities and infant feeding specialists warned that the UK is on the “brink of a public health crisis”.
Alison Thewliss MP, the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Infant Feeding, told Sky News: “The net effect is children growing up with developmental issues because they haven’t had the proper nutrition that is needed.
“That’s the kind of thing you see in countries where there has been famine or malnutrition or war. That should not be happening in the United Kingdom in 2023.”
The Glasgow Central SNP MP called for the UK government to conduct an immediate review into formula price increases and said: “I think it’s also important to see if the government could do something around a ceiling on the cost of infant formula because it is rising – rising significantly.
“The government have a role here and their role should be to make sure that babies get fed.”
She added: “There’s no reason why one (formula tub) should cost £10 and one should cost £15. And £10, I would say, is already too much for many families.”
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The baby formula industry finds itself under scrutiny and Kendamil, the only manufacturer based in the UK, has told Sky News companies could be doing more.
Every manufacturer we’ve spoken to blames significantly higher production costs for the price rises.
Kendamil’s commercial director, Will McMahon, spoke to Sky News inside their Cumbria factory.
He said: “We can’t ignore the macroeconomic shocks that we’ve had and the COVID disruptions to supply chains, the war in Ukraine and the massive impact on raw material inflation, energy price inflation. It is real.
“It’s been toughest on parents and it’s devastating to see… but it is the result of consistent cost price inflation led by the multinational conglomerates that control this market.
“Where we would like more transparency is about the enormous price discrepancies between very similar baby formulas.”
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When pressed on whether the industry is truly trying to keep cost rises to a minimum, Mr McMahon said: “I don’t think that they are pricing those products as cheap as they could price them for families.”
New data from First Steps Nutrition shows average prices have risen 24% over the past two years.
The cheapest brand of formula milk, Aldi’s Mamia, has risen by 45% in the same time period.
Other brands have risen between 17% and 31% over two years.
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In response, Danone – the company which makes Aptamil and Cow&Gate formula – told Sky News it is trying to minimise price rises.
The firm added: “To help parents, we are working with key retailers to offer bigger format value packs, which we have also committed to keep at the same price to retailers throughout 2023.
“Ultimately, individual retailers set the selling price in their stores for all products.”
Nestle, which makes the SMA formula brands, said: “We are open to a discussion with government about how best to ensure that parents have reliable and safe access to formula for their babies.”
Aldi did not respond to our request for comment.
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When Sky News asked the prime minister about the prices of baby formula, Rishi Sunak said: “I know the cost of living is the number one challenge facing British families at the moment.
“With food in particular, which of course, is something we want to help with, we’ve got to recognise right now there are challenges across Europe, inflation rates in most European countries similar to ours.
“We have particular support for young families, something called Healthy Start vouchers, which provide money to young, young families with the costs of fresh food.
“But also the household support fund is £1bn that we’ve given to local councils that families can go and talk to their council about to get that extra support that’s specific there to help them.”
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Campaigners and charities say the value of a Healthy Start voucher no longer covers the cost of a tub of formula milk and have called for it to be raised.
