Eight Democrat senators have written a letter to the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Thomas J. Vilsack asking him to tackle the baby formula industry’s “alarming level of corporate concentration” amid a shortage of the product.
Four companies, Abbott Nutrition, Mead Johnson, Gerber, and Perrigo, control almost 90 percent of the infant formula market. Abbott Nutrition, whose recall of some of its products has led to the shortage, alone controls around 40 percent of the market.
Such a level of concentration has created a “fragile system” that is unequipped to deal with “shocks in the supply chain,” the senators wrote in the May 13 letter. As a result, low-income families that rely on programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) get “disproportionately” impacted.
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