Nestlé sold Cerelac with added sugar in India while the Swiss version had none

In April 2024 Public Eye, a Swiss investigative group, published tests run on Nestlé baby-food products bought across Asia, Africa and Latin America and analysed in a Belgian laboratory. Cerelac cereals for babies aged six months to two years and Nido follow-up milk contained added sugar as sucrose or honey. Cerelac sold in India averaged more than 2.7 grams of added sugar per serving. Biscuit-flavoured variants in Senegal and South Africa carried 6 grams; one Nigerian product hit 6.8 grams. The same products sold in Switzerland and the UK carried no added sugar at all.

The finding cut against explicit health guidance: the WHO and the US CDC both advise no added sugar for children under two, and obesity is rising fastest in exactly these markets — overweight children under five in Africa are up nearly 23% since 2000. Cerelac and Nido generated more than $2.5 billion of sales in lower-income countries in 2022. In several markets, including the Philippines, Nigeria and Pakistan, added sugar was not even declared on the label, because local rules let natural and added sugars share one line.

Nestlé's defence was legal: it complied with local regulations and international standards, had cut added sugars in its infant-cereal portfolio by 11% worldwide over the past decade, and was phasing added sugars out of growing-up milks. In Europe, consumer pressure had already driven the company to remove added sugar from products for young children — proof the reformulation was feasible. Public Eye's verdict: a harmful double standard, and a call to stop adding sugar in products for under-threes everywhere.

No fine — the bill was reputational: investigation demands in India and Bangladesh, a Philippines Senate bill, and a global double-standards story.

The company defended to local regulation what it had already conceded to European consumer pressure — one brand, two recipes, and the weaker one sold to the least able to bargain.

'Complies with local rules' was literally true and rhetorically useless: the comparison the world actually ran was Swiss Cerelac versus Indian Cerelac, same tin, different sugar.

In several markets the added sugar was not declared separately, turning a formulation decision into an accusation of concealment once lab data exposed it.

The products were aimed at infants and backed by WHO guidance against added sugar under two — the hardest possible ground on which to defend a double standard.

When a recipe you already fixed in rich markets is still sold unchanged in poorer ones, the gap is not a local adaptation story — it is one leaked lab report away from a global trust crisis.

Officials in India sought investigations into the allegations, Bangladesh said it would examine added sugar in baby foods, and a bill banning added sugar in baby food moved in the Philippine Senate. Nestlé reiterated the nutritional quality of its products, its 11% decade-long cut of added sugars in infant cereals, and a phase-out of added sugars in growing-up milks. Public Eye kept demanding Nestlé stop adding sugar in all products for children under three, everywhere.