GENEVA (AP) — Former UNICEF head Ann Veneman took a seat on the board of Swiss food and drinks company Nestle SA on Thursday despite pleas from nutrition advocates who oppose the company's marketing of breast milk substitutes.
Shareholders in the Vevey, Switzerland-based maker of Nespresso, Nescafe, Gerber, Perrier, Jenny Craig and Haagen Daz approved Veneman as the newest member of Nestle's 14-member board.
Veneman took the post despite pleas from nutrition advocates who urged her not to lend her imprimatur to the company's marketing of breast milk substitutes. She headed the U.N. children's agency from 2005-2010 and before that was U.S. agriculture secretary in former President George W. Bush's administration.
As a board member, she told AP late Thursday she would be examining whether Nestle is fully complying with a voluntary breast milk code adopted by the general assembly of the World Health Organization.
The 1981 code, which is voluntary, says companies should not market infant formula and other breast milk substitutes as superior to breast milk, nor should their labeling ignore the added costs and health hazards of using substitutes.
"I remain fully supportive of the WHO code on breast milk substitutes, which clearly states babies should be exclusively breast-fed for the first six months of life," Veneman told The Associated Press.
"I will continue to advocate for full compliance with the code," she told AP. "And I will continue to advocate for the best international practices to ensure healthy nutrition for all children and adults."
The International Baby Food Action Network and a member group Baby Milk Action told Nestle there are "clear violations" in its use of logos and slogans, and claim that its infant formula strengthens babies' immune systems. They also wrote Veneman asking her to "recognize the risks of accepting the seat on the Nestle board of directors" — and take herself out of contention.
Under Veneman, UNICEF produced a film highly critical of Nestle's infant formula marketing. Afterward, Nestle acknowledged it wasn't fully implementing the WHO code.
But she noted that Nestle has recently been accepted by the FTSE 4 Good Index Series, designed to objectively measure the performance of companies that meet globally recognized corporate responsibility standards.
Last fall, Veneman, who lives in New York, joined a Nestle advisory board on development issues. That board includes U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special adviser Jeffrey Sachs and several prominent professors at Johns Hopkins University, University of Bonn and Harvard Business School.