The eagle has landed for desperate parents, and it couldn’t have come at a more needed time … replenished baby formula is here, even though it’s far from a permanent fix.
An emergency shipment of specialty formula arrived in the States Sunday via military plane — which carried with it around 78,000 pounds of Nestle Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior formula … able to fill upwards of half a million bottles, with more coming.
The touchdown of this new load was brought in from Europe on President Biden‘s orders — and while there are another 114 pallets of Gerber Good Start Extensive HA formula scheduled to arrive soon … it’s still not quite enough to replenish shelves across the country.
As you know … there’s a massive shortage going on right now at supermarkets just about everywhere — with parents reporting having to drive hours, in some cases, to find formula.
There’s a variety of reasons for the shortage — including plants having to either shut down and/or stall production — but the government’s working on getting those up and running again … including Nestle, which’ll do a standard quality check of this shipment ASAP.
After that, they’ll be sent to doctor’s offices, pharmacies and hospitals — at least first — and presumably, to grocery stores thereafter. It appears these shipments coming in are allergy-sensitive … as it seems parents have struggled mightily to find such products for their kids.
Like we said, there are a number of measures being taken to ease the high demand/short supply — the FDA has eased regulations of imports so more formula can be sent in. The government’s also looking for more providers, so we’re not reliant on just a few companies.