Baby food manufacturers love profits more than babies.
A long-time sales executive of French food-products major, Danone has made serious allegations accusing the company of flouting India’s laws by aggressively marketing its baby food products.
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The allegations include sponsoring overseas trips and alcohol-fuelled parties for doctors and even offering them financial inducements and gifts to get them to prescribe its baby food products.
Such activities are in violation of India’s Infant Milk Substitute (IMS) Act
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The Act prohibits companies involved in manufacturing baby milk formula and food for babies up to two years of age from indulging in promotional activities such as distribution of free infant food samples and feeding bottles or offering discounts.
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The allegations against Danone are grave.
However, with India accounting for nearly 20% of global child births annually, the baby food market is both lucrative and cut-throat, with competitors looking to gain market share by any means necessary.
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Danone India is not the only baby food maker accused of flouting the IMS Act.
Abbott, Nestle, Mead Johnson, and Amul all have complaints against them. Though these offenses are punishable with penalties and jail time, the government has done little more than issue warnings.
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Over the past six-years India has seen increasing sales of infant and baby foods. This is despite India’s birth rate decreasing from 18.94 per 1,000 people to 17.59 per 1,000 people in the same period.
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The increased consumption of baby foods has doctors worried. In the absence of clearly defined thresholds on carbohydrates, fats, natural and added sugar for infant foods, such products could pose serious health risks.
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Peer groups comprising of Mothers are up in arms against these companies and hospitals, seeking to curb the proliferation of baby milk substitutes and promote breastfeeding instead.
Awareness, they believe, can help combat the aggressive marketing of baby foods.
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While the efforts of individuals are commendable, they stand little chance against the might of the large companies and their colossal marketing budgets.
The onus rightly lies on the government to step up, writes @dawalelo in today’s story:
A 2007 article by Fortune magazine referred to a group of former PayPal employees and founders, including Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who have since founded and developed successful tech companies of their own, as the PayPal mafia.
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Come the end of 2021 and Southeast Asian superapp Grab will go public on Nasdaq.
With 307 of its former employees now founders of their own companies. @kakayy in today’s article writes about how this ‘Grab Mafia’ is forging its future in SE Asia:
It is a growing alumni network reminiscent of the well-known PayPal Mafia. They've founded startups across a gamut of sectors, from food-tech and fintech to bookkeeping and workflow management and even cybersecurity.
Last month, @sumanthr wrote that Zomato’s management & investors could be hoping for an IPO valuation higher than that of the last private funding round & will eventually get it to the coveted decacorn valuation milestone of $10 billion.
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Zomato's IPO is lined up for this week.
While it may see high valuations and profits in the listing phase, its journey to profitable gains, in the long run, is not without hurdles.
Unlike private markets, the public market values companies on numbers rather than narratives.
Metrics around profitability, growth, and free cash flows are critical. These aren’t necessarily Zomato’s greatest strengths.
If you’re looking to buy a 🏍️🛵 in a post-Covid world, an electric one is increasingly becoming attractive.
There's almost a price parity between petrol and electric scooters. You’ll also be doing your bit for the environment.
That’s exactly what Hero Electric is betting on.
Covid has brutally hit India’s $118B auto industry. But Hero Electric is in a relatively better position compared with other manufacturers. Despite the general slump across the sector, Hero Electric’s sales crossed 1,000 units in March 2020, with a 36% market share.
Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is one of Asia’s leading media organisations. It has a sprawling media business, including newspapers, magazines, and radio stations.
In the last two decades, however, SPH has started looking more like a property company.
Along with marquee newspapers The Straits Times and The Business Times, SPH’s portfolio also includes seven shopping malls across Singapore and Australia, three student accommodation brands in the UK and Germany, and five nursing home operators in Singapore and Japan.
For a good part of the last decade, ESOPs offered the promised land of riches. First Infosys, and then Flipkart set benchmarks. For listed and acquired companies.
But no other company has come close to replacing them in the ESOP hall of fame.
ESOPs have emerged as an unlikely tool of leverage among startups after the onset of #Covid19.
The likes of Zomato, Bounce, Grofers, and OYO are compensating their employees for pay cuts with ESOPs.
They’re also being used as a tool to acqui-hire companies on the cheap.