The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast
Welcome to The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast, where we won't claim to have all the answers to life's deepest questions, but we promise you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you needed!
Join friends Cesar, Rob, Chris and Victor as we dive head first into topics that might be mainstream but not common knowledge. No topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together!
The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast
Nestlé: Chocolate to Controversies
What if one company could be both a beloved snack maker and a corporate villain? Join us as we unpack the multifaceted saga of Nestlé, a global giant with a history as rich as its chocolate. From trying to help infant mortality rates to the modern-day controversies that haunt the brand, we explore the evolution of an empire that’s as complex as it is ubiquitous.
We shine a light on the infamous 1970s baby formula scandal that rocked the world and question the ethical dilemmas faced by companies and consumers alike. How does one reconcile the convenience of a trusted brand with its less savory business practices? We navigate the moral minefield of modern consumerism, challenging you to rethink what you know about the brands on your shelves.
The episode continues in a critical turn as we address Nestlé's environmental footprint, especially its controversial water extraction methods. Join us for a thought-provoking dialogue that leaves you questioning not just the ethics of corporations, but the power of your purchasing decisions.
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What do you guys think about when you hear some of these brands Kit Kat, erection, l'oreal?
Cesar:Definitely Boner.
Rob:What about Purina Hand cream? Purina is a hand cream.
Chris:Oh, I think it said.
Rob:Purell.
Chris:I was going to say, yeah, isn't that a duck food?
Victor:Yeah, Victor, what do you feed your cat? He gets a can of wet food a day. Anything friskies cannot be, uh pate, so he likes friskies. Tried giving him that blue buffalo, like that, all natural shit, because I was like I want my cat to be healthy. Fucking hates it. Try the signature selects is it more expensive?
Cesar:it's, it's, yeah, it's about 129 a can what do you think I'm made of money?
Rob:jesus christ, that's what my cat gets.
Cesar:I only get her the morsels.
Rob:Your cat lives large bro yeah.
Cesar:Yeah.
Rob:I'm buying single white albacore tuna on sale and this thing's getting duck pate. So what if I told you a lot of these household brands were owned by a single company? I'm not surprised. Monsanto Close, Kit Kat, L'Oreal, Stouffer's, Purina Friskies are all brands under the umbrella of Nestle. I'm not dumb, but what's the story behind Nestle?
Cesar:Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb but Podcast, where we won't claim to have the answers to life's deepest questions.
Victor:But we'll give you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you'd be in.
Cesar:Might be mainstream, but not common knowledge. From artificial intelligence to conspiracy theories, no topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together.
Rob:I'm Rob, your host for today, joined by our incredibly talented co-host, chris. What's up, our boy, victor?
Victor:How y'all doing. And well, you know, caesar Yo, am I getting a degree after this fucking episode? You're not getting shit.
Rob:You're not getting shit. You're getting a Regents diploma which is worth shit.
Victor:I've been up in here trying to get a motherfucking scholarship.
Rob:So what do you guys know about Nestle Nesquik, Nesquik that's guys think about oh and uh, the crunch, nestle crunch.
Chris:Yeah, the nestle crunch ain't bad, really good chocolate, like I think of chocolate if I hear that, yeah all right.
Rob:So let's get, let's get in the time machine, let's go back, you guys ready.
Chris:Okay, we're going back. What?
Victor:chris, watch your knees yeah, get in this time machine we're going in victor.
Rob:Set it to 1814 1814 did you do? It's asking for a software update. Yeah, you gotta ignore, just ignore it.
Chris:Ignore it, just hit the button let's go. Let's go, we're here.
Rob:The year is 1814, and Henrik Nestle, born in Frankfurt, germany, the 11th child of 14. And he had some pretty humble beginnings. But our boy Henrik, he's pretty smart. He studied chemistry and in 1834, he actually completed an apprenticeship to be a pharmacist.
Victor:So at the age of 20, he was practicing pharmacy In 1834,. I mean, how hard is it to be a pharmacist?
Rob:I don't think it's that hard. I don't think. Well, he did like a four-year apprenticeship, okay.
Cesar:So he got like a lot of oxycodone.
Rob:He mixed a lot of stuff together.
Victor:We have more books now and microscopes. We have microscopes. They didn't have microscopes, Caesar microscopes. Yeah, they had microscopes you got to have a microscope. Science.
Rob:So our boy was pretty smart, practicing pharmacy, but he's looking for something a little bit more. That time there wasn't a lot of opportunity in Frankfurt, germany, so he moves over to Switzerland to find some work. Oh, switzerland. So he moved to this town called Vevey it was a French-speaking area of Switzerland and he's looking to make some coin. He starts selling different types of products, stuff that he can make Making rum, making vinegars, nut oils, gas fertilizer. He's doing anything to try to get some cash.
Chris:Wait, wait. So he's just mixing shit just to see what he can sell. Pretty much, yeah, he's creating products.
Rob:He's creating products. He's creating products. He had a pretty good entrepreneurial mind and he was pretty good at chemistry, so this sounds annoying to be his friend.
Victor:It's like, hey, how's the vinegar business going? Nope, drop, that I'm doing fertilizer now. I'm doing fertilizer. Shit's fucking crazy. The vinegar game didn't work out. I'm switched to fertilizer. Next week I'm going to rum.
Cesar:By the way, two for one, special tonight Only for you Always be closing.
Rob:He changed his name to Henri Nestle, sounded a little more French. He wanted to fit in. Basically, now, in this time, europe had just come out of this industrial revolution and there was a lot of economic upheaval, a lot of malnutrition, a lot of infant mortality rates were on a steep decline. So our boy Henri, you know, he's been selling all these products and he starts thinking like maybe I can do something with this. He decides to go on and tackle the infant mortality business you want to ask what it is or no.
Victor:I know what infant mortality is.
Chris:Can I get a definition please? You know what infant mortality business. Do you want to ask what it is or no? I know what infant mortality is.
Rob:Can I get a definition please? You don't know what infant mortality is, Chris. No, A lot of babies were dying. It just wasn't a good time. You can't make a joke about this Watch me Canceled.
Rob:So there's one specific topic he likes or one specific problem he decides to go after. He wants to go and try to solve the problem with women who cannot breastfeed. So there was an issue with some women who were unable to breastfeed at the time he had a good idea about chemistry. He was in pharmacies too. I had an idea of like what the body needed and he decides to develop this thing called um formula. Well, he called it farine lacti on re nestle.
Rob:What a fucking name oh, no way that's crazy, yeah, which basically means milk flour milk flour bro milk flour, and all it was was just wheat flour, condensed milk and sugar. It was it powdered. It was powdered in a powdered form. You just add water and you're just add water to go, and then you put it on your breast and then you pour it on and then you mix it in. There's a video, just look it up.
Victor:That was creepy. That's not how this works.
Rob:Yeah, so this was the early stages of baby formula and it was a huge, huge success. It was so big that he immediately had to make a factory afterward to process all the orders. So this, basically, is what positioned nestle into the food industry now. He did this in 1867. He was nearly 50 years old when he decided to do this.
Victor:Never give up never give up motivation for me yeah, one day, when you're 50, you can open up a factory making, yeah, breasts I'm going to write a down.
Chris:Do I really do that.
Victor:Just hire a bunch of Cambodians, put them on like pumps. I only drink the finest breast milks.
Rob:But apparently it was a thing like Cambodians they would supplement breast milk for animal milks for women who couldn't breastfeed. The big thing that maybe would have interested him into this idea was that they had just come up with like crazy good farming efficiencies, so milk was abundant, like everywhere. The problem is that they couldn't refrigerate it, so milk was going rancid. So he was like milk's cheap. I got grain to push. I know how to make this formula I can really get rid of. I can get really rich off this. So there was some, uh, really good intentions behind it.
Victor:Or maybe he was just a money maker I think he was just a money maker, because this guy went from like fucking fertilizer pharmacist. This guy was just seeing what made money I'm impressed.
Chris:Yeah, definitely, yeah, very impressive.
Victor:He would have been on. He would have been on shark tank every other fucking week yeah, pitching a new idea.
Cesar:He would have been a shark too.
Victor:At 50 something years old and he'd be like listen, I was like you once. How much money do you want for this? I'll give you $10,000 for 20% of your company.
Cesar:And two bottles of fertilizer that I just made, take it or leave it, and a bottle of breath milk.
Chris:It's one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. I'm out.
Rob:He makes a lot of money and he's pretty well off at this point. One of his neighbors actually was in the area. His name was Daniel Peter. He was trying to mix chocolate. They had chocolate, but it was dark chocolate. It was very bitter. He wanted to make a very cleaner, tastier version of this chocolate. He got introduced to Henri and Henri was like well, you have too much water in your milk and you need to basically bring it down. So how about you buy your condensed milk from me? And that took off like took off. And this was the guy who made milk chocolate.
Victor:Wait, he invented milk chocolate.
Rob:Yeah, this guy, Daniel Peter, invented milk chocolate. Henri helped him make milk chocolate using his condensed milk. Immediately after that they merged together and created the Nestle company.
Victor:So it wasn't.
Rob:Hershey. Hershey and Mars were around at this time also. They were selling chocolate. This guy, daniel Peter, was the guy who created milk chocolate. So that's how Nestle basically went from the food industry and then transferred over into what we know them as a chocolate company. So at this point Nestle's like I am ridiculously rich. So he's like you know what I'm going to retire Sells his company to like three local businessmen for like 100 or 1 million Swiss francs 1 million in 1875?
Chris:Swiss francs.
Rob:Can you get a conversion rate on that?
Cesar:$30 million.
Victor:That's nothing $ 30 million dollars, how many millions do you?
Cesar:have a lot, but they're in bonds. I can't touch it, you know.
Victor:Yeah, yeah and someone none of it's liquid, yeah it doesn't exist, it's never landed, it is no matter, it's not on the elemental chart I thought you were gonna be like oh, this is where he turned evil, because that would have been a cooler story no, no no, this is when he starts getting into weird sex, pedophilia, shit.
Chris:This is where it turns with chocolate. You never take candy from a stranger getting like prostitutes left and right throwing them in in vats of chocolate.
Victor:I'm the candy man. Bitches, not sex parties.
Rob:Yeah, he sells his company in 1875 but this is where the story starts to veer off the path of a nice guy trying to solve the world's problems and where we start to see this multinational company come into play. So what they would do is they would start to buy up the competition anytime they saw something come up. So in 1905, they were like all right, we would really want to push this chocolate all around Europe. They acquired this company called Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk and they didn't stop there. Anytime a company would come up they would try to buy it. And, as Victor was saying, you had Hershey's, you had Mars bars in the game. So they wanted to stay competitive and not just be a chocolate company. So they would acquire tons of other companies. They got into powdered coffee and then later on in the 60s and the 70s, they would start to acquire companies like L'Oreal, nespresso in the 1980s, other chocolate companies like Kit Kat in the 1980s, purina, alpo, pet food companies, because they wanted to basically stay competitive in the market.
Chris:So a lot of products they have is stuff they acquired, not they created or they made Exactly.
Rob:So they made a lot of money up front and then they just started diversifying to be this huge multinational conglomerate.
Victor:They've never been in trouble, though financially.
Rob:No, they've actually done pretty good. They have been in trouble PR wise. In the 1970s for Rhin-Lacte they had the baby formula products. Demand started to decrease for baby formula. When your demand drops for something, cesar, give me some MBA, speak here what's an activity a company can do to promote or sell their products?
Cesar:I have no idea. I missed that class.
Victor:MBA hard at work over there. Yeah, I'm starting to think it's you.
Rob:You advertise, you advertise, you advertise.
Victor:Marketing.
Rob:Marketing.
Victor:I don't have an MBA. I didn't fucking know that, influencers the Hulk, you advertise for marketing. I don't have an MBA. I didn't fucking know that, influencers the Hulk, the Hulk wants you to buy formula.
Cesar:Think about it.
Rob:It's big and strong. This was brought to you by She-Hulk.
Victor:You can't imagine the commercial there About that.
Rob:It's true I am a Hulk, so we remember the idea that Nestle was coming up with right it was this alternative to breast milk. Right now, breast milk is recommended for babies by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, American Medical Society. All these companies are saying that breast milk is better than baby formula. I always thought formula was way better.
Chris:I thought formula was more of like a supplement to the breast milk.
Cesar:I don't know anything about formula Cesar. No, it was designed as a supplement for women that can't, you know, naturally produce breast milk.
Rob:Nestle didn't like that idea. Well, of course not. Their formula company was actually one of their highest profit margins and when it started to tank in the 1970s, they didn't like this idea of an alternative or supplement. So they started an aggressive marketing campaign to undermine breast milk and started making claims that baby formula was better for babies than breast milk. Nestle would pay off doctors and nurses to tell mothers that baby formula was better than breast milk.
Cesar:That's not good.
Victor:Wow, but did they like line it with like vitamins and shit?
Rob:It was just wheat, flour and cereal. If you couldn't breastfeed, it was good because it had natural fats and it had carbs and sugars and it had something, but it is no way in any way better than breast milk. But Nestle decided we got to take this one step further. They started killing mothers.
Cesar:Yeah, that's right, took a dark turn.
Rob:When you guys go into Costco, what do you look forward to? Free samples. And that's exactly what Nestle did. We'll provide free samples at the maternity wards and at home to women who have just had given birth to babies. Actually, what they would do is they would dress up their saleswomen in nurses' outfits.
Rob:That's hot and they would walk down the maternity halls pushing baby formula, wow. And they would tell mothers and they would even make house calls telling them that hey, listen, this is better. Here's a bunch of free samples. Let us know what you need. They would provide enough formula to stop the natural breast milk production of the mother and then, after they would do that, the mothers had absolutely no choice but to continue to buy the formula. So now they've increased their market share from people who can't breastfeed and they've made people who can not be able to Dick move Nestle, dick move. What year?
Rob:is this roughly this is in the 1970s. They do this everywhere. They did it in Europe. Roughly this is in the 1970s. They do this everywhere. They did it in europe, they did in the states, except there was some pr stuff coming out and they started to realize that this is probably not a good idea. What they had to do was basically keep it going. So what they were doing, they would go into these underdeveloped nations and do these same exact practices and try to get these women to stop naturally breastfeeding and then force their hand. Except there was one caveat. What did you need for this formula to work? Water, exactly. But yo, no worries, man, the brilliant minds at Nestle have got us covered. They would provide instructions in English, of course. It was simple. All you had to do was wash your hands and add clean drinking water. And if you didn't have clean drinking water, well then all you had to do was boil your water using an electric stove to kill the bacteria.
Cesar:If they didn't have access to cleaning water, I don't think they're going to have access to a stove and and market, women who couldn't read or write.
Victor:Did no one do any research whatsoever before doing this?
Rob:I mean, did they not do research, or was this part of the plan?
Chris:Because it's all part of the plan.
Rob:Since many of the people didn't have access to clean water, a lot of the babies were getting sick and the cost alone was killing them. So what they would do is, in a way to basically save some money, the mothers would dilute the baby formula, which is just worse for you anyway and they would just dilute it with even more water to try to cut it to be able to get the formula to last longer. So the babies who weren't getting sick were now becoming extremely malnourished.
Victor:That's not good.
Rob:No, how do you think that these companies get so far away from their ethos?
Cesar:Greed, it's simple. You want to make more profit? Yeah, it's simple.
Victor:Oh no, I was going to say because they're Swiss. Oh.
Rob:What does that have to do with anything? The Swiss are notoriously assholes. Really Are they?
Victor:That's why they're always neutral in everything. They don't take sides. They're just like we're just here on the sidelines with our chocolate thinking about plans to kill babies.
Cesar:I have no idea what I'm asking you Swiss dick is. Are you going to fuck me over?
Rob:Don't you think that these companies have a right to protect the people that they're selling to?
Victor:companies don't give a fuck. They're not people, that, they're just entities. And then, for some reason, when you put a bunch of people behind the the shield of a company, they think that they're. There's enough separation between that and the people that they're fucking killing that, uh, they don't give a fuck yeah, pretty.
Chris:Pretty sure they have a group of lawyers that goes through all the regulations and all that stuff and trying to find a loophole.
Victor:You're talking about? Would a CEO that has to deal with stockholders and stock prices give a shit about the end product? But he's passing it on to a mid-level manager who's all he's thinking about is I'm going to get fired if I don't come up with a new idea or more money for my department. So yeah, let's try something else. Oh, how does it affect something? I will give the fuck.
Cesar:I need to make money because I don't get fired, because my kids need to eat all these companies operate under the one simple thing, bro, it's better to ask for forgiveness than to do it the right way. The first time there's been stories that where they calculated if we fuck up and do things the right way, it's more expensive than just paying the pr hit later on. And that's what.
Victor:That's literally how they, how they operate you can always negotiate an apology if you have to pay someone off. That can be negotiated and you send your team of lawyers to fucking do it.
Cesar:It's not new to nestle. It's not new to any of these companies. They do the same thing over and over again Because by the time it comes to light, you're going to have a new executive board making the decisions. So at the end of the day, there's no accountability or nothing. But then again, what's the point of having fuck you money?
Rob:if you never say fuck you. In 1974, this expose called the baby killer came out, and it created an international scandal where people started boycotting their products. Four years later, nestle was brought to the US Senate to answer for its tactics and as a result, a lot of developing nations created new regulations where companies could not come out and straight up say that baby formula was better or equal to breast milk. So what Nestle decided to do was just double down on non-developed nations and continue to aggressively market this in parts of Southeast Asia.
Cesar:It's a big argument in the hospitals, people will plant their flag on either side.
Rob:Really, really Still.
Cesar:Still.
Chris:No, yes, still, Still, I for one listen Breast milk.
Cesar:Still, no, yes, still Still. I for one, listen Breast milk, of course, because it's natural. If you're not producing enough or if the child is still hungry, you can always supplement it with formula Protein powder.
Victor:That means formula.
Rob:Yeah, yeah. What do they say in the hospitals Like do they want whey or way concentrate?
Cesar:I think they do. I don't give a shit where my gains come from.
Rob:I mean. So Nestle came into some heat the past couple years, you know. Now they're running into some more heat with bottled water. So in 2013, it got some heat for diverting clean drinking water from villages in Pakistan to their factories and then selling that bottled water back to the people. And if they couldn't afford it, then they would have to go and drink the contaminated or sludge water in the areas. It just seems like this is like Nestle's tactic.
Victor:I think if they figure out a way to sell clean air, they will literally suck the air out of the sky.
Cesar:Oh it's coming, Bottle it, what's going to happen? And then just go. Hey, do you need air?
Victor:For $1.50, you can get an hour's worth of air. Are you just breathing?
Rob:regular air. You know that shit will kill.
Victor:You Are you suffocating right now?
Rob:Well, that shit will kill you.
Victor:Not as low as my low low prices.
Rob:That's a great idea.
Cesar:I saw this show. The air was poisonous and this company was selling these canned air. What we found out later on was the same company that was selling the canned air was actually continuing to poison the atmosphere. So the air was continuing to be poisonous.
Chris:Wait, was that some Korean show? Yes, chris, it'll miss.
Rob:Not only were they doing this in Pakistan, they brought it close to home. So you guys remember, in 2016, with California was suffering an extreme drought.
Chris:Yeah, yeah, with.
Rob:California was suffering an extreme drought. Yeah yeah, nestle decided that it was a good idea to go ahead and extract 27 million gallons of clean water from the natural forests in Southern California to fill up their Arrowhead water bottles.
Chris:Dick move right.
Rob:In 2016,. They were pumping all the water, they acquired a license for $524 that actually expired in 1988. But because they were pumping all the water, they acquired a license for $524. That actually expired in 1988. But because they were able to continue to make the annual fee payment, it was automatically extended years later and then, basically, when the California government came under scrutiny, they said, no, everything seems right here because they've been making their $524 annual payments, so they were just pumping all this water out. I mean, have you ever drank Arrowhead bottled water? It's fucking disgusting. It's like the worst water I've ever drank.
Chris:Never heard of it. So as long as you have a license, you can just pump the water as much as you want.
Victor:When do they put out these licenses right? Like 40 years ago If your town's population is 40,000, in 1980, and like 40 years ago if your town's population is 40,000 in 1980, and you got all this fucking water that you're not using.
Victor:Yeah, let's get a little extra money to the town and sell it to this company. Now it's 2024, your town population grew fucking 100% and now you actually need that water. But no one's ever looked back to see hey, let's check these licenses. And also, at this point, the town doesn't want to lose that money. So do you think?
Rob:that this is a problem with companies, or do you think this is a problem with governments and regulation?
Cesar:Companies are designed to skirt, as you know, regulations.
Rob:So that's what gets me is like you know, you hear all these things about these massive companies doing all these things, but they're legally allowed to do it.
Victor:I would say some of their practices are shady because they do have their lobbying arms that kind of lean the government to certain ways or another. But in the end I feel it's still local government and regulations that needs to put them in check. It's like having a pet tiger.
Rob:I mean, that's just a terrible idea.
Victor:Right, but if it scratches you or if it bites you, you can't get mad at it, because it's a tiger and that's what it does. The companies are the same thing. Companies are fucking assholes and they'll try to screw any which way to get some profit. So when they try to do it, you can't really get mad at them, because they're just doing what they want to do to get money. There has to be a government or laws in place to keep them in check and unfortunately, no government official is going to go after a big company.
Rob:Why not?
Cesar:Jobs security. A lot of these companies. What do they do? They provide jobs for the surrounding environment.
Chris:And I'm pretty sure they're getting something on the side too.
Rob:Nestle is also dealing with this plastic crisis also. We know that basically 90% of plastics are not getting recycled. So a lot of these big companies are one of the huge, largest polluters of plastics in the world. Because of the whole plastic water bottles, Nestle is the third largest plastic polluter in the world. They pollute about 1.7 million tons of plastics a year. What does that mean? 1.4 million Toyotas, Chris.
Chris:Oh, that makes sense.
Victor:Gotcha. I'll just say this though we passed laws to not give out plastic bags anymore and I bitched when they stopped doing it, but I do not give a shit at this point. I just bring my bags to the fucking grocery store Right same here.
Chris:It became part of my like everyday life.
Victor:It became a normal thing If they came out with a thing saying no more plastic bottled water. Either use glass or have refillable stations everywhere, or whatever the fuck they come up with. It'll be a bitch at first, but give it like a month and no one will give a shit.
Cesar:No, I completely of a shit.
Victor:No, I completely disagree they came after my soda.
Cesar:You're not gonna come after my plastic bottles. You don't need 30 ounces of fucking soda.
Rob:Yes, I do tell me how much soda I need, bro I take all the plastic bottles and then it's a free country.
Rob:You're not my supervisor. See, I use the plastic bags from the grocery store to, like you know, wrap my food in, because fucking tupperware containers they just are designed to leak, right, so they fucking leak all over my bag. They leak in my lunchbox. So what I do is, as my wife's picking the most inefficient way to run through the grocery store, I head straight to the produce I do perimeter and then lanes In the produce section.
Victor:The produce is perimeter.
Rob:Okay.
Victor:It's like vegetables, deli and bread, and then it's meats, and then it's milks, yogurts, cheeses, whatever, and then I just choose which lane I need to go into, Either like because you know, maybe I need pasta and rice. I'll go into that lane. I need some cans of beans. I go into that lane. I need some cans of beans.
Rob:Go into that lane and then out. Yeah, I go straight to the produce and I just start ripping all those plastic bags out of there and I shove it into my fucking canvas. Those are shit, though it doesn't matter, it still gets what I need done. If you go right now and check every single one of my garbage pails, you're going to find, like a fucking tomato sticker Squat. You're going to find all that shit. That's how I get through. These are tough times. What Nestle likes to do is they like to partner with dictators?
Victor:Oh, I'm sure North Korea can use some bottled water.
Rob:So one really good one that I was reading about is this uh, robert mugabe, the dictator of zimbabwe, who's uh I don't know if you guys know his work, but he's he's very big with uh bribery election bringing in genocide okay, didn't he have that hit single for a while?
Victor:he's an r&B singer.
Rob:So his wife, Grace Mugabe, made a deal with Nestle and basically sourced 15% of their milk for their condensed milk and other products that they made through their farms.
Cesar:So how did they do this Probably. Find them on LinkedIn. Send them a message. Hey, this is what we need. Can I have 15 minutes to talk about it?
Rob:That's one way to do it.
Victor:I thought that was funny, cesar. I thought that was funny, caesar.
Rob:I thought that was funny. I don't know that was all right. I mean, I was like waiting for someone to laugh. I'm in the zone, you guys gotta laugh. We'll add that in there. You can't partner with dictators.
Victor:Yeah, you can we do it all the time. The US loves dictators. Are you kidding me?
Rob:Yeah, but we do it legally, and so did Nestle. The Mugabes were bound by US and EU sanctions, but the way they got around with this is they said well, we're a Swiss company and we're not part of the EU and we're neutral Because of that, so they would go ahead and just partner with dictatorships. One of their last partnerships was with Belarus. They indirectly fund the Belarusian government by marketing Nestle products on their state television. One in three commercials on state TV is a Nestle commercial, for either some sort of Nestle product.
Cesar:Realistically, they have so many products under them that, unless you're unless you're going to boycott 2 000 products, like pretty much everything, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? And you're only one person or one family, you're going to continue to use these products. Do you really think? Do you really look at products and say, oh, nestle did it, they're still dealing with, uh, dictators. No, find a product that you want or a product that you need, get it at the best price. Nestle did it. They're still dealing with dictators.
Rob:No, find a product that you want or a product that you need, get it at the best price, and if they're the best price, take it and keep it moving.
Chris:Yeah, I think that's all consumers care about is the price.
Victor:Unfortunately, price is the price, yo. So Nestle makes Cheerios outside of the US and Canada. General Mills makes Cheerios inside the Us and canada.
Rob:oh they make the giorno as well. Yo that pizza's bomb, though. I went to go pick up a giorno pizza because I was like I really want like a giorno pizza. She was like 20, I'm just gonna go to a pizzeria and fucking get like a fresh pizza for like 15 no, pizzas are 20, a regular cheese is yeah but are you gonna get a di giorno pizza, or like a high quality, or like a high quality made by, like you know, an albanian guy?
Cesar:yeah, I'm gonna get the journal.
Rob:It's not delivery, it's di giorno but you know, the one of the biggest things that they teach now, and that people tend to follow brands, is the mission of the brand. A lot of brands will be like, oh, we're sustainably, we're big on sustainability. Or you have like the Toms and you have the Warby Parkers, who are giving like free glasses or shoes to underprivileged people and they are supporting and giving back to Cool.
Cesar:I get, get that, I get those and that that's cool.
Rob:But do you think that that if that trend keeps that, companies like nestle are behind?
Cesar:you know what esg right, those environmental? I heard companies are scaling back on that stuff because at the end of the day it's all price.
Victor:Ethics is like a luxury when price doesn't fucking matter. If I'm going to buy extra money for Tom's shoes, because an extra 20 bucks for Tom's shoes? Because they're going to give some underprivileged guy a pair of shoes in some country that I've never fucking heard of, I feel great about myself. Sure, until my economy goes down, or until inflation goes up and my dollar doesn't go as far for myself, everyone starts cutting back, because that's how far morality goes these days. I'm buying store brand. Okay, I'm down to store brand.
Rob:I'm down to Signature America.
Victor:I'm down to Bowling Basket. Okay, that's all that's going into my cart and broke.
Rob:When I first started reading about Nestle, I was like this is great. But after you read it, they get a lot of negative PR and people are saying, oh, they're a bad company. Like you said, if you have a tiger and it scratches you, are you really surprised? I think it's one of those things with Nestle Corporation. You got to basically tame the tiger. You got to do something with it. You can't expect these companies to have your best interest, if it's.
Chris:I thought, when you said Nestle, I thought we're going to talk about chocolate. We did, chris.
Victor:I know. But yeah, tell them, chris, that chocolate's bathed in blood. I know, I didn't know it was going to be blood chocolate.
Rob:That's actually what they call it. Why do you think the Kit Kat wrappers are red? That's actually what they call it? Because I mean, when I was reading, they're basically all these major chocolate companies source their chocolate from West Africa and what they do is they have to get it from these local farmers. They're poor and they have tons of kids and they can't afford to send them to school, so they make the kids work on the farms and then what a lot of kids do in the surrounding regions is they'll bust these children over and force them to work on these farms for like $9 a week. Since 2005, they have made promises that like, okay, we're going to cut down on like child labor and unpaid workers Every year that they hit their milestone. They do absolutely nothing about it.
Victor:Slav. You're making him feel bad, Stop.
Chris:All right, no more chocolate. I'm not getting any chocolate wasted anymore All Halloween.
Victor:I just ate two bags of Kit Kats like not too long ago.
Chris:That's a Nestle product. How dare?
Rob:you, it tasted like guilt.
Cesar:I'm ashamed of myself.
Rob:So what do you guys think? Key takeaways Teaser.
Cesar:At this point, all of it is business strategy, right, like, can you really fault them? It's a company that it's going to do whatever it can to maximize its profits. Am I going to boycott any of their products? Probably not. Can to maximize his profits. Am I gonna boycott any other products? Probably not, because at this point it doesn't really affect me that much. I don't know, chris, what are your thoughts?
Chris:okay, I don't think I'm not like caesar and victor said, I'm not gonna boycott them just because it is about the price, you know. So I mean it sucks that they were like killing babies, moms. Business is business, you know. They just have to do what they have to do. Again, I don't really care or I don't, it's not, it doesn't affect my life, it doesn't affect you know chris is about to use every nesli product chocolate, milk, lotion.
Victor:I don't care, victor I urge all 10 of our listeners. I think we have 19 now all 19 of our listeners.
Rob:I think we have 19 now.
Victor:All 19 of our listeners. No, I urge anyone who listens to this. I urge you to find out where your local water supply comes from and I urge you to just start reaching out to entities and being like what are you doing to make sure my water's clean and what are you doing to make sure that Nestle isn't going to take all of it, because the water wars are coming? Oh yeah, they're coming? Sure that Nestle isn't going to take all of it because the water wars are coming? Oh yeah, they're coming. That and air and the air. Yes, bottle your air in the empty bottles of water.
Rob:Chris, get on the air thing for us.
Victor:Start bottling air. The water wars are coming.
Chris:Guys, Get your guns I don't like them putting chemicals in the water.
Victor:That turn the friggin' frogs gay.
Rob:Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to follow us on instagram, twitter and youtube at I'm not dumb, but where we post extra fun content you may not find on today's podcast, and before you go, hit that subscribe button because you'll feel better. Trust me, until next time, stay curious. There's a guy from nestle that doesn't think water is a human right. Dude, this guy wants to own the rain.
