Turning water into money
By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - 12 Comments
Talk of trading access to water on an open market stirs controversy, but it’s already a reality in Alberta
Dominique Favre/Reuters
Last month, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestlé SA, the world’s largest food company, made a splash in Alberta for announcing, via an interview with Reuters in Geneva, that Nestlé was in talks with the Alberta government to establish a so-called water exchange—a market in which water, life’s sine qua non, could be bought and sold just like wheat, pork bellies or any other commodity. “We are actively dealing with the government of Alberta to think about a water exchange,” said Brabeck-Letmathe, describing the province as ideal for such a scheme because water there is scarce and competition for the resource between farmers and oil sands operators is fierce.
This was news to the government of Alberta, which swiftly moved to allay fears about the commodification of Alberta’s water, and its potential export. “Alberta’s water is not for sale and will not be,” Environment Minister Rob Renner told the legislature.
Yet Renner did not deny outright that the province had met with Nestlé, or others, to discuss the notion of setting up a water market in which licences to access the Crown-owned resource could be traded for money. (The province left it to Nestlé to clarify the issue: “Nestlé SA representatives have not met the government of Alberta to discuss an exchange-based water trade,” a press release said.) In fact, Renner signalled the province might indeed have an appetite for setting up such a system: “I think there will come a day, at some point in time, when we need to value water. Whether that means in the form of a regulatory regime or whether it means in some form of a market remains to be seen.”
-
Meet the single-serve baby formula machine
By Stephanie Findlay - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 16 Comments
Nestlé’s new product is raising the ire of breastfeeding advocates
Denis Balibouse/Reuters
Ever wish you could feed your nursing babe by simply pressing a button? Nestlé has the product for you: BabyNes, a single-serve baby-formula machine that resembles a single-serve coffee maker. The US$297 contraption makes formula out of a range of capsules (costing roughly US$65 for a 26-pack) to feed infants up to three years of age. In May, BabyNes went on sale in Switzerland and is expected to launch globally next year. “We think this could be as successful as Nespresso,” Martin Grieder, director of BabyNes, told Fox News, referring to Nestlé’s capsule coffee system. Nespresso is its fastest-growing brand—sales increased 20 per cent to US$3.55 billion in 2010.
Predictably, breastfeeding advocates are unimpressed, accusing the food giant of undermining the World Health Organization’s guidelines recommending breastfeeding for the first six months. But Nestlé prefers to highlight the technological genius of its product. As Grieder puts it: “This is a game changer.”
-
The healing power of groceries
By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments
Combining foods and pharmaceuticals is a booming business riddled with controversial claims
Wu Kaixiang/Zuma Press/Keystone Press/ Matt Rourke/AP
How many hopeful consumers have gulped down sweet beverages like POM Wonderful or Vitaminwater believing they weren’t just quenching their thirst but taking a dose of medicine?
Enough to turn the nutrient-enhanced food and beverage industry into a multi-billion-dollar business. And despite a growing controversy over the claims of certain health foods, there’s no sign the market is slowing. Last week, the global food giant Nestlé SA announced that it’s betting US$510 million on the fact that people will continue to indulge in “pharma foods.” Over the next decade, it plans to invest in a health science business that will create products to treat obesity and a range of chronic ailments, from diabetes to cardiovascular disease.
-
On your port side, cookies
By Julia Belluz - Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments
Nestlé is sailing the Amazon with a floating grocery store to try to reach a lucrative, untapped market
Marie Hippenmeyer
For the month of July, Nestlé Brasil has unleashed a floating supermarket barge on the tributaries that thread deep into the Amazon region in an attempt to reach some 800,000 Brazilians living in isolated, riverside communities. “We are going to pick up the customer where he is,” announced Ivan Zurita, the CEO of Nestlé Brasil, in a statement. “This will be a service to the population of the Amazon, which has streets and avenues in the form of rivers.”
Wherever the boat docks, locals can come aboard and wade through 1,000 sq. feet of supermarket space packed with more than 300 products, including chocolate, cookies, yogourt and ice cream. To meet the needs of poorer customers, Nestlé will sell smaller, more affordable packages of their branded foods and enrich them with nutrients to address deficiencies in local populations.
