ICI’s board of directors approved an investment of Rs960 million for a 40% stake in Nutrico Pakistan, which will be run jointly with Unibrands, to sell Japan’s Morinaga infant formula in Pakistan, company officials said.
It believes that misleading advertising lures parents of newborns into buying the product. To implement this decision, the authority has decided to draft a separate regulation by the end of September.
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Producers of the infant formulas have also been informed to abstain from misleading labels in the packaging or advertisement of their products. It added that parents must be categorically informed that formulas were in no way a substitute for a natural diet or mother’s milk.
This was disclosed to producers of infant food formula products during a meeting on Thursday with Director General Punjab Food Authority Noorul Amin Mengal. The moot was requested by the Integrated Reproductive Maternal and Newborn Child Health and Nutrition Programme.
The programme’s operations additional director Dr Akhter Rasheed said baby formulas were marketed to newborns by medical reps scavenging for new clients at hospitals. He said parents were mostly given misleading information regarding the nutritional value of the product. Rasheed said no parent would prefer this formula over mother’s milk after knowing it’s not a substitute.
He said parents were convinced to the point that some believed the formula was a good enough substitute. The additional director added salesmen even gave free food formula to promote their product. Rasheed continued this activity was taking place in the vicinity of medical facilities and in the presence of doctors.
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He added doctors also benefited from the misleading marketing in the form of gifts. He said the initiative of the Punjab Food Authority would bar the marketing of these products at medical facilities. He said reps would only be allowed to market their products via email to doctors.
PFA Additional DG (Technical) Dr Shahzeb said the authority would draft the new regulation by the end of September to regulate baby formulas. He said once the regulation was passed, no salesmen of these products would be allowed in hospitals for marketing purposes.
Shahzeb said that there would be serious penalties for anyone violating the law.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2017.
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