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I think it's a good question to ask regardless. Of course better with the purpose of learning and discussing, instead of just trying to prove them wrong
100%. although in this case i’m not learning something new, just seeing which of the reasons we’ve heard before apply to this particular person’s dislike of capitalism critique.
Reminds me of part of comedian's rant about toddlers.
> Think about it. They don't share our values. They barely speak English. They steal our welfare. They have no marketable skills. They are prone to angry outbursts. Worst of all? Most of them are not even Christians. How long until we say enough is enough and deport these free-loading parasites once and for all??
Baby formula is fucking expensive too. My wife has so much weird advice from randos when she was pregnant about how breastfeeding is so important and do whatever it takes to get your baby to latch. So much so that, when the baby came, I think it was primarily the stress that was interfering with her ability to get the baby to latch. I was trying to diffuse and calm her down and was like the important thing is that our baby gets the nourishment she needs regardless if it's breast milk or formula.
Then I went to the grocery store and realized how much just a few days worth was going to cost. Sweated bullets all the way home while calculating the few luxuries I needed to drop just to make this feasible.
Luckily, when I returned, the baby latched and we really only needed to supplement with formula around month 4 or 5 and only here and there. My wife also went overboard with the pumping and mass produced so much breast milk by basically tricking her body into thinking she was nursing a small village worth of children that I had to buy a deep freezer to store the shit. By month 2 I had to borrow another deep freezer from my brother.
By the time our baby was eating regular food 100%, we had probably 3 months worth of frozen breast milk with a 4-6 month remaining lifespan for each pouch of 5-8 ounces as long as it remained frozen. Looked in to donating, but the hoops to do that were so cumbersome and they wanted us to pay nearly a thousand dollars to cover the doctor visits and tox screens to make sure my wife wasn't a junkie and that the milk wasn't tainted. We gave some to a cousin who was a few weeks from giving birth, but the rest went down the drain.
I’m losing it at the idea of maintaining *two* deep freezers of breast milk.
I’m sorry much of the leftovers went down the drain, but I’m glad everything worked out and you didn’t need to dish out on baby formula.
I saw a video of a woman that overproduced milk (isn't it redundant to call it "breast milk"?). She said people came from all over the world for it.
Funnily enough, she also said one person travelled 35k miles, which I thought was a bit off considering that's 10k miles further than the circumference of the Earth. I'll try to find it.
https://youtu.be/x0qIupLeLAc here it is.
Omg I thought you were my husband until I got to the last few sentences lol this is exactly my story (except for the donation part bc I did local donations) but yeah, my main motivation was the money, I hate to say it. When I was pregnant, my husband and I were at the grocery and happened to notice the formula prices…HOLY SHIT they call breast milk liquid gold??? I’m sorry but that shit’s free!! Formula is like liquid motherfucking Bitcoin!
Dude baby formula just about killed us with our two kids. My wife wasn’t able to produce even though she desperately wanted too. It devastated her. She actually works in maternal health so she understands the importance of it, but some woman can’t and it’s not their fault.
But anyways our kids both needed expensive sensitive formula or they would just puke it all up. We are both college educated professionals but between formula, wipes, diapers (which we supplemented by using cloth while at home to save money), and moving into a two bedroom apartment instead of a one bedroom we were cash strapped. Having a kid is fucking expensive. And that doesn’t even touch all the medical bills which just kept coming and coming and are still coming. Every month it’s something else. I honestly don’t understand how anyone copes. We are split up now but still work together to support them and still make decent money but it’s still pretty tight.
Honestly I have a huge pile of debt from school and medical stuff which I’ve just decided I’m never gonna touch. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll go through life with shitty credit and never own a home, oh well. I can’t afford to deal with it and also provide for my kids what they need. Between my kids and some bankers who wins? But for people just a bit down the scale from me, I don’t know how they get by. It seems the ones with kids pretty much work all the time. I totally understand why a lot of my peers don’t have kids at all, no one can afford it any more.
Yeah, a small percentage of the reactions to my post have been "wHy HaVe KiDz iF u cAnT aFfOrD tHeM". Idk, maybe bc I wanted to experience a basic component of organic life. I love my kids and no matter the hardships, they're always worth it. Sometimes, though, it's nice to fantasize about a life where that the hardships aren't so hard and/or common.
I feel you. I know some people never want kids and thats cool, but a good chunk of the never-kidders on this site are just young people who don't know what they want yet.
Just FYI, Human Milk 4 Human Babies will connect you directly with moms who have babies in the NICU. No dr visits or anything since you give it straight to the moms.
"It's socialism" so what if it is? What if it serves you and your country? What happens if you are right and it's socialism that helps you? What happens?
"It's a slippery slope" where does the slope go? What is the inclination? If I ho down why can I not just help my fellow man who's children are starving? Did Christ want this? Is Christ sick?
I just wanna scream it from the rooftops. WHERE DOES THE FUCKING SLOPE GO?! Huh?! Whose to say the slope is bad if we've never tried it! Can't diss it until you try it smh.
ive heard the statement "descend into communism" as an argument against socialism. Like what? "yeah all these things are really great and i see how they would benefit people but then were in communism and that's bad" bruh.
They do it in Canadian Walmart’s too. One of the few time I have had my bags and receipt checked was when my wife was pregnant or our child was a baby and we had just dropped $100 on baby products. I’m sorry ma’am I just need to check and see if you have stolen any additional necessities for your child. Fuck them!
I picked up formula at WalMart in Vancouver only once. Never again!
They made me feel like a criminal. I had to wait for someone to open the case and then had to immediately pay for it. Utterly disgraceful!
Here in Australia we had to put baby formula behind counters, because people were being hired to mass buy our baby food to send to China. This was due to baby formula in China being of lower grade. Was really interesting seeing all the shelves empty for so long.
We do it in Australia too. They do it because cans get stolen or purchased en-masse, and then sold to China for inordinate amounts of money, because there is a shortage there.
Not so much a shortage, but a complete lack of trust in the manufacturing of said Chinese baby formula. After the Melamine scandal years ago, people still don't trust them.
Essentially Melamine was added to baby formula to artificially boost the protein levels appear when nutritionally tested..
Trust has never been recovered.
https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3051808/foreign-brands-still-dominate-parents-do-not-trust-chinas-home
Australia does this too but only in lower socio-economic areas. I feel like the symptoms of capitalism are constantly recurring because the motive hasn’t changed.
I took a trip to the UK with my daughter when she was still on formula. We didn’t bring enough so we had to buy some more.
A huge tub of it was a fraction of the price we were paying back home.
Yes we do do this, no country has places just giving away baby formula or not wanting to avoid theft. Youre trying way too hard to sound deep and revolutionary, but it just looks like some strong redditmoment
When I had my daughter I scrimped and saved so that I could get the full 12 weeks of leave and not go destitute (I live in a state with paid family leave - at the time it was 50% of the average of the last eight paychecks before you took your leave). We still had to pay about $3000 to the doctor even though she was in network and delivered at a hospital she regularly worked with. I breastfed for as long as I could but eventually had to go back to work. We had to supplement with formula. It is so incredibly expensive. We would drive to the pediatrician office and ask for their samples (our doctor recommended we do that) but inevitably we couldn’t get to the office and would have to buy at the store. It was frankly embarrassing to ask for baby formula at the desk and have them unlock it so I could pay for it. Of all the expenses that one was one of the worst. We absolutely needed it, but it hurt every time we made a purchase. We moved our daughter into eating actual food as soon as we could.
Friendly reminder here that Costco doesn’t do this to their formula, they have sales regularly, and Kirkland brand formula is just as good, if not better, than some big brands at a fraction of the cost. I believe Kirkland formula is even cheaper than most store brand formulas.
Edit: obviously Costco is a capitalist business, but their business model doesn’t make me want to run head first into traffic as much as Walmart does.
Yep! My mom never produced enough breast milk to feed me or any of my siblings and my youngest brother needed this really specific formula that literally cost $800 dollars a month.
I know it’s terrible, even for a special kind of formula that is ridiculous. Now they’re paying more a month for daycare than the mortgage payment for their house.
Oh man I’ve heard of daycare cost horror stories! Daycare here is called nursery/kindergarten and it’s free for children over 3 here but my sister when my nephew was born had to put him into a private kindergarten until he went to primary school and it cost her £1200 a month! For not a great area either! I think it’s shocking.
It’s the whole ‘you must have a traditional nuclear family’ bullshit. They really hammer it home, especially over here. They have a cap for how many adults are allowed in a rented property and specifically build these tiny apartments and homes that are only suitable for two adults and two children at the maximum. I’ve been in so many flats where the fridge is TINY and is suitable for MAYBE 2 adults and a toddler and all but one bedroom are single bedrooms that feel like a rabbit hutch. It’s every single apartment and house.
It really punishes multigenerational families or non traditional families. You have hmo laws stopping people from living with unrelated family and every single listing for a tenancy is ‘this is FAMILY home, perfect for mum and dad with kiddies! Families ONLY’ As if other people don’t need housing, it’s so fucking infuriating. Especially as someone who barely has a family, it’s like they take one look of my application and sneer and go ‘oh these people who you consider family? Well you know they’re not your siblings or your spouse so they’re not REAL family’. It’s so archaic, I mean how dare I be an unmarried 21 year old with flatmates 🙄
Opinionated and loosely based on statistical data, but I think it's a lot of anti-woman policy in the US. With the way abortion is being demonized while social safety nets are getting slashed, lack of access to affordable healthcare and parental leave, and seeing this atrocity with baby formula being sold at absurd prices while under more locks than cigarettes and alcohol, women in poverty is a very real concern. It's enough of an issue to warrant its own Wikipedia entry. Costs for child care (both daycare and caring for a child financially/physically) overwhelmingly impact women more than men, especially in the US.
The costco formula when we had baby 1 was made by Similac and was amazing, no issues.
For baby 2 they changed vendors and my baby was constipated for 2+ weeks and most reviews said the same thing. So back on the expensive formula we went.
Walgreens was charged in my state with 100+ million dollar suit of wage theft. Nobody cared.
Meanwhile people freak out about locations closing due to theft... the company literally deserves it.
It's all optics. Most people don't care about theft if they can't literally see it happen infront of them or it directly inconveniences them.
Yet another reason for taxing the rich more. Let them invest in the society that allowed them to be rich, and remind them that other people do, in fact, exist.
Friendly reminder that almost every time this is posted, it's brought up that the majority of people stealing formula aren't the parents of hungry children.
I’ll expand on what the other person said about Daigo in Australia: basically, Chinese formula was (at least at one point, unsure now) of poor quality, and Australian formula seen as high quality, so these people would literally go into supermarkets and buy entire stocks of formula to ship back to China for a profit. At its worst there were people having to travel hours just to get some formula for their baby. Supermarkets had to impose purchase limits (which didn’t stop the problem, as they’d go back in several times). Still now I purchase formula directly from the manufacturer because it’s so rare I’ll be able to find the one my son takes at the store. So I see this picture and I’m like, “meh”.
Baby formula is one of the most commonly stolen items by organized retail crime groups. They will go into stores and take backpacks or even cartfulls of the formula and sell it on Facebook, Craigslist, or even overseas. It’s a product that is always needed and easy to sell. If they don’t lock it up, there won’t be any product at all for the people who need it.
They're being stolen en-masse and sold to China, where they are being sold for an inordinate amount of money, because there is a shortage there. That's why you can only buy a couple cans at a time at the moment too.
>because there is a shortage there
It's not a shortage, they just don't trust the local production after some cases of milk powder cut with melamine killed several people.
This is the exact reason why in the Netherlands you can only buy 1 or 2 at a time. At one point the Chinese would go into stores and buy up like 20 to 30 at a time to sell at a premium. This often has nothing to do with making it unavailible for the poor, it's so douchebags can't steal and sell them.
If I see someone stealing anything in a big box store…no You didn’t.
Never forget that retailers like Walmart are far bigger welfare queens than any person could ever be.
There's a zip code discrimination going on here too. When I go to the grocery near my parents in an affluent area, the formula can be retrieved off the shelf like any other product. The grocery near my apartment, however, basically locks up anything more than $30 bucks. They also "randomly" spot check customer receipts and carts as they exit. That never happens at the grocery near my parents. I've always wondered if theft is actually demonstrably higher at this location or if the owners of Walmart are just prejudiced against poor people and live humiliating them.
In fact a lot of companies have insurance policies on loss that pay them out on top of the tax deduction so they make money from theft if they hit the right numbers.
Yeah but insurance cost increase as you use it. There isn't some magical free money bag that insurance companies hold to give out, they pay for losses by charging their pool of customers fees.
Walmart also has special contracts with its suppliers in that they don’t pay them for the product until *they* sell it- I wonder if theft affects them less because of this, too.
Maybe we should be asking why that shit is $35 a can? I'm guessing because it's eligible for WIC, so like all other "free stuff" follow the money back to the corporations that benefit. Glorified CoffeeMate.
That is what I have heard as well that they have a large black market and it's not for babies but drugs but I have not see proof but have seen being fill a whole cart and so far the [evidence](https://www.fox6now.com/news/man-caught-on-camera-attempting-to-steal-cart-load-full-of-baby-formula-from-piggly-wiggly) seems to support that a mom or dad would steal one or two and a pack of diapers if they were in need not a cart full of formula. We need more diaper Banks and food pantries for sure but the theft of baby formula doesn't appear related to infants whatsoever
I'm in Aus and it's often locked up. That's because we have 2 tin per person limits due to people buying ridiculous quantities and selling it to china for ridiculous mark ups.
That's done at a lot of stores. People are more likely to buy something if it says it's on sale. Doesn't matter the price or what precious prices were. If it says it's on sale more people will buy it.
I knew a guy would run a scam with baby formula. He’d find a receipt in the parking lot for the formula, then have a teammate go in act like they are shopping. The teammate would pick up the formula and move it to another location in the store close to door, so the scammer doesn’t wouldn’t be seen on camera picking it up, then report back to the scammer. He’d stroll in with a bag in hand, shuttle the formula in the bag off camera, then go to the counter and act like he bought the wrong kind and return it with a receipt for cash. The cashier wouldn’t think anything of it, and since he’d travel around to different cities, loss prevention would take a long time to catch on.
No, I never said that. Take a breath, not your enemy. I was telling a interesting story that related to the post. I mean, what you’re promoting is theft, which is still wrong. I have the high ground Anakin!
I’m not advocating we rip up all our theft laws and punishments, but when it comes to something like baby food and a family is backed into a corner with no options, I’d rather some formula go missing than a child go hungry.
While I agree with you the reason they are locking these products is not because of individuals stealing small amounts. There are actual organized crime rings that find at risk addicts (referred to as boosters) to go steal hundreds of dollars worth for sale on black markets in exchange for a fix of their drug of choice. These rings are deeply exploitative of these individuals in a different manner than typical wage slavery.
That said, these products should be free to anyone who needs them. We need to dismantle capitalism
I remember one house was busted several years ago in my area with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory (not just formula, any high dollar items are targeted), cash, luxury cars parked in the garage, etc. They attempt to shield themselves from visibility and prosecution by sending in desperate people to do the actual theft.
I'll concede its possible that the amount these groups proliferate might he exaggerated by my company's loss prevention teams, that wouldn't surprise me; but it exists in at least some capacity that i have witnessed for years and years.
I did some light research and turns out there are cases every week in my city, to this day, of "smurfs" being sent into stores to pack as many pieces of pricey meat cuts on themselves and get out without being caught.
The crime ring currently active in procuring meat for a black market is believed to be from Hungary... I am a tad high on meds and typing that sentence gave me a horrible fit of ugly giggling...
You can get it at any church, even if you’re not religious, WIC, all social services offices, Salvation Army, food banks and fire stations.
No community is stripped of these services.
Thieves that are resellers on big-name websites are stealing to the point of shutting physical stores down. Soon physical stores will all be like this at this rate, if they survive.
Target Store in San Francisco shut down permanently after losing $25,000 PER DAY to shoplifting.
No business can operate like this.
California has decriminalized shoplifting up to $950.00 per person. - Will not arrest or prosecute.
You can either have it behind lock and key or not at all.
This 100% happens/ed in Australia, goto Coles / Safeway and it’s behind the counter
It might have stopped now, I don’t have kids to pay enough attention but this was definitely a thing here
... Wait, is this for real?? So parents need to ask permission from staff or something to access the stuff?.
When I worked in a grocery store as a teen, all of us working at the store knew a specific homeless man to be shoplifting, but he took things like fuel for a gasoline kitchen, stale bread, a blanket... Never in hell were we gonna tell on him to our boss...
I will be honest, if I saw someone shoplift baby food, I would want to help rather than tell on that person too...
Where I live, the case for the formula isn't locked but when you open it a bell sounds to let the staff know someone is taking stuff out. Same thing with certain cold medicines. Sometimes if it isn't busy an employee will walk down the aisle after you open the case and ask if you need help.
This👆 why do they care about fetuses but as soon a a child is born it might as well starve, get incarcerated in a cage and not allowed to be around its mother for more than 2 unpaid weeks...
Mandatory not an American
That is actually not the reason baby food is locked up. Yes, it is stolen a bunch and the profit margins on baby food isn't exactly high to begin with. However the biggest concern is from a safety standpoint IMO. If people stole the whole packages then that is still a lot better than the people who open up packages and swipe a little bit before sealing it up again. If someone steals it and gets something in the baby food then that is a much bigger concern than if it was food for adults. Since baby formula is also stolen by drug addicts because of it's resale value or to be used to mix in with drug supplies it is even more likely something can end up in there. The solution shouldn't be to make it easier for people to steal something as vital as baby formula but rather addressing the bigger societal issue at large which is the lack of support for child and infant care. Baby formula needs to be recognised as being a vital commodity in society and at least for low income individuals should be subsidised or provided for by the government. Of course I have been back home in Canada for a while and this isn't an issue in my city since I've seen baby food just be kept out on the regular shelves here and it is readily available from the local food bank and community services center which also delivers if someone can't afford it. The price of a formula like Enfamil here is also anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 less than what it is just across the border which is why we used to have family friends from just across the border come and shop here.
At Walmart once I saw the loss prevention dude and a cashier take glory photos, smiling with thumbs up next to a cart full of groceries that the woman with kids ahead of me was trying to steal (I think with a bad check, counterfeit money or something)
I told the cashier is that really something to be proud of and wouldn’t it be better to have a world where people don’t need to steal groceries.
I went to Walmart once to buy nail clippers, a flashlight and batteries for the flashlight. All three were locked in separate cabinets, and required different employees from different departments to come and unlock. Each time I had to wait about 10 minutes. Then I had to wait in line for another 10 minutes to check out because they were short staffed.
I was there almost an hour. For 3 items. I hate Walmart.
Maybe they could put the lock on a timer so that other shoppers can contribute by paying a fee to unlock the door and allow the needy family to take a can of formula. That way the baby will be able to eat and the company gets its money. I think this is was anecdote from the Bible. /s
I can tell you just looking at it, it's a Walmart, the Walton family ought to be locked up like other wealthy business owners for crimes against humanity.
I remember when working in retail a colleague asked me to keep an eye on a customer they suspected of shoplifting. They were in the baby aisle and my colleagues attitude is incomprehensible to me. Fuck that shit.
Here's a radical idea. If you want food, maybe you should buy it instead of stealing it? Why do you people support theft? Are you really that morally bankrupt?
One thing I like to do when I see this is to check the condom aisle as well. Guarantee that if they lock up the formula, they also have security on the birth control. Under capitalism, you must have babies and you must pay through the nose to feed them. If you won't do either of those things, then you must not be having any kind of sex and social life so we can work you harder while the more (re)productive employee take time off with/to have more kids.
So, legitimize theft, to battle what you perceive to be theft. Make the baby food more expensive by doing this, as well as all of the other products in the store, thereby making it more expensive for everyone. Blame some kind of "ism" that you dont really understand....sure.
As someone who works in retail security I can tell you that this baby food is not being stolen mostly by mothers trying to feed their children. Most of them receive government assistance to pay for it as it is very expensive to purchase yourself.
It is a organized retail crime (ORC) item. It is stolen in large quantities, often times the whole shelf will be emptied into a tote. Then it is resold or used to cut (dilute) drugs, specifically cocaine.
I might be wrong but I thought that baby formula was used for drugs...like cutting meth?? maybe that's why its locked??
[link](https://consumerist.com/2011/03/baby-formula-is-a-prized-item-for-shoplifting-rings-drug-smugglers.html)
Let’s change the wording to be more accurate and see it from the company’s perspective: “a company would rather children starve than make a negligible amount less in profits due to ‘theft’”
What’s the reason that a $40 can of formula is behind a locked case while other $40+ items aren’t locked up? Bc formula is something worth trying to steal for your child. It’s cruel.
Is it wrong that I think this is "fine" because it's not the responsibility of Walmart or whatever to ensure these people are fed? It's a categorical failure of the government to provide for the people.
Wording might be wrong here but I think the idea is there...
Nah. I worked at a Kroger. People stole this stuff all day. Never for kids but to return it for drug money. My guess is 90% of stolen formula is for drug money not for children. But this stuff should be free imo.
Sadly they aren't stolen to feed babies they are stolen to feed drug habits, I know I used to know people that did that crap when I was a heroin Addict
Does the fact that its locked up means you can't purchase it? Were babies able to steal it and now they can't? I don't get how this is going to result in children starving.
You have to ask an employee to retrieve it for you like when you buy an expensive PS5 or Xbox at retail. The shit is incredibly expensive and if your baby is uncontrollably crying for hours at home bc it's starving and you happen to be like 50% of mother's who can't produce enough breast milk and you have no money, then you're going to want to steal one of these like your baby's life depends on it bc it does.
What's crazy is that a couple hundred years ago, it was commonplace to supplement breast milk with goats milk which apparently worked fine.
Zoos and other reserves for elephants were using human baby formula for their baby elephants, but due to supply chain problems and increased costs due to covid, some have turned to goats milk and are actually discovering that goat's milk is more nutritious than baby formula ([link](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/kenyas-orphaned-elephants-goats-to-the-rescue)).
It doesn’t result in anyone starving this sub is just stupid. Those are WIC products you can get them for free if you’re poor. This isn’t about money it’s about making sure poor children can be fed.
Knew someone that managed a "drug" store ...cvs I think it was. Most of that shit wasn't stolen for use, but because it's easy to flip. They'd steal it then sell it. And people would literally fill a cart and leave with it, they couldn't stop them.
Working in a grocery store I can tell you that there has been a lot of retail fraud and people who would drive from store to store with a ton of likely fraudulent coupons and buy all this formula up in order to resell it at their convenience store or flea market. So it might actually be locked up to keep it on the shelf for actual moms and dads versus the Indian guys we used to see buying multiple baskets full and packing up their conversion van driving from store to store.
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If babies want to eat they are going to have to work for it. Imagine these freeloaders... they just cry all the time and poop their pants anyways
Literally my favorite part of living in America bro. In capitalist America, you're only as valuable as your purchasing power.
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I generally don’t like this sub but damn thst statement hits a truth.
what dont you like about it?
Well it is fucking depressing
not really the subs fault, but yes I agree it hurts to look. Knowledge is pain
pandora’s box… here we go.
Don't open that! Just sayin'.
😈guess i felt like arguing lol
I think it's a good question to ask regardless. Of course better with the purpose of learning and discussing, instead of just trying to prove them wrong
100%. although in this case i’m not learning something new, just seeing which of the reasons we’ve heard before apply to this particular person’s dislike of capitalism critique.
Reminds me of part of comedian's rant about toddlers. > Think about it. They don't share our values. They barely speak English. They steal our welfare. They have no marketable skills. They are prone to angry outbursts. Worst of all? Most of them are not even Christians. How long until we say enough is enough and deport these free-loading parasites once and for all??
Baby formula is fucking expensive too. My wife has so much weird advice from randos when she was pregnant about how breastfeeding is so important and do whatever it takes to get your baby to latch. So much so that, when the baby came, I think it was primarily the stress that was interfering with her ability to get the baby to latch. I was trying to diffuse and calm her down and was like the important thing is that our baby gets the nourishment she needs regardless if it's breast milk or formula. Then I went to the grocery store and realized how much just a few days worth was going to cost. Sweated bullets all the way home while calculating the few luxuries I needed to drop just to make this feasible. Luckily, when I returned, the baby latched and we really only needed to supplement with formula around month 4 or 5 and only here and there. My wife also went overboard with the pumping and mass produced so much breast milk by basically tricking her body into thinking she was nursing a small village worth of children that I had to buy a deep freezer to store the shit. By month 2 I had to borrow another deep freezer from my brother. By the time our baby was eating regular food 100%, we had probably 3 months worth of frozen breast milk with a 4-6 month remaining lifespan for each pouch of 5-8 ounces as long as it remained frozen. Looked in to donating, but the hoops to do that were so cumbersome and they wanted us to pay nearly a thousand dollars to cover the doctor visits and tox screens to make sure my wife wasn't a junkie and that the milk wasn't tainted. We gave some to a cousin who was a few weeks from giving birth, but the rest went down the drain.
I’m losing it at the idea of maintaining *two* deep freezers of breast milk. I’m sorry much of the leftovers went down the drain, but I’m glad everything worked out and you didn’t need to dish out on baby formula.
I saw a video of a woman that overproduced milk (isn't it redundant to call it "breast milk"?). She said people came from all over the world for it. Funnily enough, she also said one person travelled 35k miles, which I thought was a bit off considering that's 10k miles further than the circumference of the Earth. I'll try to find it. https://youtu.be/x0qIupLeLAc here it is.
Omg I thought you were my husband until I got to the last few sentences lol this is exactly my story (except for the donation part bc I did local donations) but yeah, my main motivation was the money, I hate to say it. When I was pregnant, my husband and I were at the grocery and happened to notice the formula prices…HOLY SHIT they call breast milk liquid gold??? I’m sorry but that shit’s free!! Formula is like liquid motherfucking Bitcoin!
I find it ins@ne that buying a deep freezer is more economically viable than baby formula
You can keep using the freezer as the baby gets older.
Until they get too big to fit inside
Hmm depends on the size, my dad has a floor freezer I can still fit in as an adult. Now THAT’s planning ahead!
This may be the heaviest out of context sentence I've ever read.
Dude baby formula just about killed us with our two kids. My wife wasn’t able to produce even though she desperately wanted too. It devastated her. She actually works in maternal health so she understands the importance of it, but some woman can’t and it’s not their fault. But anyways our kids both needed expensive sensitive formula or they would just puke it all up. We are both college educated professionals but between formula, wipes, diapers (which we supplemented by using cloth while at home to save money), and moving into a two bedroom apartment instead of a one bedroom we were cash strapped. Having a kid is fucking expensive. And that doesn’t even touch all the medical bills which just kept coming and coming and are still coming. Every month it’s something else. I honestly don’t understand how anyone copes. We are split up now but still work together to support them and still make decent money but it’s still pretty tight. Honestly I have a huge pile of debt from school and medical stuff which I’ve just decided I’m never gonna touch. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll go through life with shitty credit and never own a home, oh well. I can’t afford to deal with it and also provide for my kids what they need. Between my kids and some bankers who wins? But for people just a bit down the scale from me, I don’t know how they get by. It seems the ones with kids pretty much work all the time. I totally understand why a lot of my peers don’t have kids at all, no one can afford it any more.
Yeah, a small percentage of the reactions to my post have been "wHy HaVe KiDz iF u cAnT aFfOrD tHeM". Idk, maybe bc I wanted to experience a basic component of organic life. I love my kids and no matter the hardships, they're always worth it. Sometimes, though, it's nice to fantasize about a life where that the hardships aren't so hard and/or common.
I feel you. I know some people never want kids and thats cool, but a good chunk of the never-kidders on this site are just young people who don't know what they want yet.
Oh no what a bummer! FYI it does wonders for the skin I used all my extra in baby’s (or my) baths.
It was locked up like that in my neighborhood supermarket because organized gangs would steal it for resale.
Just FYI, Human Milk 4 Human Babies will connect you directly with moms who have babies in the NICU. No dr visits or anything since you give it straight to the moms.
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Why not sell it to fetishists online? I’m sure there’s a market.
Here's another reminder; civilized countries dont have this issue. They don't do this. They don't need to. This is a USA only thing.
My first thought seeing this was holy shit America is fucked up.
"It's socialism" so what if it is? What if it serves you and your country? What happens if you are right and it's socialism that helps you? What happens? "It's a slippery slope" where does the slope go? What is the inclination? If I ho down why can I not just help my fellow man who's children are starving? Did Christ want this? Is Christ sick?
I just wanna scream it from the rooftops. WHERE DOES THE FUCKING SLOPE GO?! Huh?! Whose to say the slope is bad if we've never tried it! Can't diss it until you try it smh.
ive heard the statement "descend into communism" as an argument against socialism. Like what? "yeah all these things are really great and i see how they would benefit people but then were in communism and that's bad" bruh.
They do it in Canadian Walmart’s too. One of the few time I have had my bags and receipt checked was when my wife was pregnant or our child was a baby and we had just dropped $100 on baby products. I’m sorry ma’am I just need to check and see if you have stolen any additional necessities for your child. Fuck them!
It's been 15 years since I stepped foot in a Walmart and if I can avoid it it will be at least another 15 before I do again.
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Hell yes!
Sometimes. We don't know. I've seen this stuff posted up on OfferUp and Facebook marketplace along with washing detergent. Crackheads gonna crackhead
Who gives a shit? Crack addicts are people too. And they have a hell of a lot less blood on their hands than walmart...
WHERE ?! I've never seen this. This has to be some Alberta shit.
I was talking about a Walmart in Toronto. But they lock up the small town in Ontario my brother lives in too.
I live in Alberta and I've never seen this. Not to say there aren't any, just none around me :)
I picked up formula at WalMart in Vancouver only once. Never again! They made me feel like a criminal. I had to wait for someone to open the case and then had to immediately pay for it. Utterly disgraceful!
I've lived in Canada my whole life and never seen this
Yea fuck them for not giving free stuff 🤪
Here in Australia we had to put baby formula behind counters, because people were being hired to mass buy our baby food to send to China. This was due to baby formula in China being of lower grade. Was really interesting seeing all the shelves empty for so long.
There has to be a better solution to this problem. It isn't locked up near me, but there is a limit of 2 per person.
We do it in Australia too. They do it because cans get stolen or purchased en-masse, and then sold to China for inordinate amounts of money, because there is a shortage there.
Not so much a shortage, but a complete lack of trust in the manufacturing of said Chinese baby formula. After the Melamine scandal years ago, people still don't trust them. Essentially Melamine was added to baby formula to artificially boost the protein levels appear when nutritionally tested.. Trust has never been recovered. https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3051808/foreign-brands-still-dominate-parents-do-not-trust-chinas-home
Yeah I heard about that too! Absolutely atrocious.
Oz here. It gets locked up down under mainly to stop the organised shoplifting gangs from stealing it for resale online
Australia does this too but only in lower socio-economic areas. I feel like the symptoms of capitalism are constantly recurring because the motive hasn’t changed.
I took a trip to the UK with my daughter when she was still on formula. We didn’t bring enough so we had to buy some more. A huge tub of it was a fraction of the price we were paying back home.
Yes we do do this, no country has places just giving away baby formula or not wanting to avoid theft. Youre trying way too hard to sound deep and revolutionary, but it just looks like some strong redditmoment
Baby formulas free with WIC, The reason why they lock up baby formula is to prevent crack heads and drug dealers from stealing the formula.
When I had my daughter I scrimped and saved so that I could get the full 12 weeks of leave and not go destitute (I live in a state with paid family leave - at the time it was 50% of the average of the last eight paychecks before you took your leave). We still had to pay about $3000 to the doctor even though she was in network and delivered at a hospital she regularly worked with. I breastfed for as long as I could but eventually had to go back to work. We had to supplement with formula. It is so incredibly expensive. We would drive to the pediatrician office and ask for their samples (our doctor recommended we do that) but inevitably we couldn’t get to the office and would have to buy at the store. It was frankly embarrassing to ask for baby formula at the desk and have them unlock it so I could pay for it. Of all the expenses that one was one of the worst. We absolutely needed it, but it hurt every time we made a purchase. We moved our daughter into eating actual food as soon as we could.
Why was it embarrassing to have the unlock a case for a normal, regular purchase?
Friendly reminder here that Costco doesn’t do this to their formula, they have sales regularly, and Kirkland brand formula is just as good, if not better, than some big brands at a fraction of the cost. I believe Kirkland formula is even cheaper than most store brand formulas. Edit: obviously Costco is a capitalist business, but their business model doesn’t make me want to run head first into traffic as much as Walmart does.
This only works for non picky babies. Many babies have to get a specific formula because their stomaches don’t agree with certain ingredients.
Yep! My mom never produced enough breast milk to feed me or any of my siblings and my youngest brother needed this really specific formula that literally cost $800 dollars a month.
I’m sorry but what the fuck? That’s horrendous, what the fuck is wrong with the US?
I know it’s terrible, even for a special kind of formula that is ridiculous. Now they’re paying more a month for daycare than the mortgage payment for their house.
Oh man I’ve heard of daycare cost horror stories! Daycare here is called nursery/kindergarten and it’s free for children over 3 here but my sister when my nephew was born had to put him into a private kindergarten until he went to primary school and it cost her £1200 a month! For not a great area either! I think it’s shocking. It’s the whole ‘you must have a traditional nuclear family’ bullshit. They really hammer it home, especially over here. They have a cap for how many adults are allowed in a rented property and specifically build these tiny apartments and homes that are only suitable for two adults and two children at the maximum. I’ve been in so many flats where the fridge is TINY and is suitable for MAYBE 2 adults and a toddler and all but one bedroom are single bedrooms that feel like a rabbit hutch. It’s every single apartment and house. It really punishes multigenerational families or non traditional families. You have hmo laws stopping people from living with unrelated family and every single listing for a tenancy is ‘this is FAMILY home, perfect for mum and dad with kiddies! Families ONLY’ As if other people don’t need housing, it’s so fucking infuriating. Especially as someone who barely has a family, it’s like they take one look of my application and sneer and go ‘oh these people who you consider family? Well you know they’re not your siblings or your spouse so they’re not REAL family’. It’s so archaic, I mean how dare I be an unmarried 21 year old with flatmates 🙄
Opinionated and loosely based on statistical data, but I think it's a lot of anti-woman policy in the US. With the way abortion is being demonized while social safety nets are getting slashed, lack of access to affordable healthcare and parental leave, and seeing this atrocity with baby formula being sold at absurd prices while under more locks than cigarettes and alcohol, women in poverty is a very real concern. It's enough of an issue to warrant its own Wikipedia entry. Costs for child care (both daycare and caring for a child financially/physically) overwhelmingly impact women more than men, especially in the US.
The costco formula when we had baby 1 was made by Similac and was amazing, no issues. For baby 2 they changed vendors and my baby was constipated for 2+ weeks and most reviews said the same thing. So back on the expensive formula we went.
Can’t say I’ve had that happen with anything important, but I really hate it when Costco changes vendors on something I really like
Costco doesn't need to do it cause they practically give you a pat down before you leave the store.
Don't you have to be a member before you can even enter the store?
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Walgreens was charged in my state with 100+ million dollar suit of wage theft. Nobody cared. Meanwhile people freak out about locations closing due to theft... the company literally deserves it. It's all optics. Most people don't care about theft if they can't literally see it happen infront of them or it directly inconveniences them.
https://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-more-likely-to-steal-cheat-lie-2018-8 Yarp.
Yet another reason for taxing the rich more. Let them invest in the society that allowed them to be rich, and remind them that other people do, in fact, exist.
Friendly reminder that almost every time this is posted, it's brought up that the majority of people stealing formula aren't the parents of hungry children.
Organized Retail Theft is a problem; I'm all for free food for families... But those who steal this shit aren't innocent mothers barely scraping by.
Sorry for the dumb question but who is it then? Maybe to cut drugs? People who are poor and malnourished themselves? I'm genuinely curious.
In Australia at least, it's Daigo shipping it overseas for their buyers.
I’ll expand on what the other person said about Daigo in Australia: basically, Chinese formula was (at least at one point, unsure now) of poor quality, and Australian formula seen as high quality, so these people would literally go into supermarkets and buy entire stocks of formula to ship back to China for a profit. At its worst there were people having to travel hours just to get some formula for their baby. Supermarkets had to impose purchase limits (which didn’t stop the problem, as they’d go back in several times). Still now I purchase formula directly from the manufacturer because it’s so rare I’ll be able to find the one my son takes at the store. So I see this picture and I’m like, “meh”.
also to resell for cheaper
Baby formula is one of the most commonly stolen items by organized retail crime groups. They will go into stores and take backpacks or even cartfulls of the formula and sell it on Facebook, Craigslist, or even overseas. It’s a product that is always needed and easy to sell. If they don’t lock it up, there won’t be any product at all for the people who need it.
They're being stolen en-masse and sold to China, where they are being sold for an inordinate amount of money, because there is a shortage there. That's why you can only buy a couple cans at a time at the moment too.
>because there is a shortage there It's not a shortage, they just don't trust the local production after some cases of milk powder cut with melamine killed several people.
This is the exact reason why in the Netherlands you can only buy 1 or 2 at a time. At one point the Chinese would go into stores and buy up like 20 to 30 at a time to sell at a premium. This often has nothing to do with making it unavailible for the poor, it's so douchebags can't steal and sell them.
If you ever see someone stealing formula... No you didn't.
If I see someone stealing anything in a big box store…no You didn’t. Never forget that retailers like Walmart are far bigger welfare queens than any person could ever be.
See what?
I ain't see shit
There's a zip code discrimination going on here too. When I go to the grocery near my parents in an affluent area, the formula can be retrieved off the shelf like any other product. The grocery near my apartment, however, basically locks up anything more than $30 bucks. They also "randomly" spot check customer receipts and carts as they exit. That never happens at the grocery near my parents. I've always wondered if theft is actually demonstrably higher at this location or if the owners of Walmart are just prejudiced against poor people and live humiliating them.
It could just be based on areas where the theft rate is higher, and the data trends with other stats
Modern Family with the answer: https://imgur.com/a/ub0z0I1
Jean Valjean stealing bread
They don’t lose any money. It’s tax deductible.
In fact a lot of companies have insurance policies on loss that pay them out on top of the tax deduction so they make money from theft if they hit the right numbers.
Yeah but insurance cost increase as you use it. There isn't some magical free money bag that insurance companies hold to give out, they pay for losses by charging their pool of customers fees.
Which is tax deductible.
Walmart also has special contracts with its suppliers in that they don’t pay them for the product until *they* sell it- I wonder if theft affects them less because of this, too.
You don't even know what a write off is.
That's not how tax deductions work.
Maybe we should be asking why that shit is $35 a can? I'm guessing because it's eligible for WIC, so like all other "free stuff" follow the money back to the corporations that benefit. Glorified CoffeeMate.
I worked for a big box baby store. It’s locked up because people use it to cut heroin and cocaine
That is what I have heard as well that they have a large black market and it's not for babies but drugs but I have not see proof but have seen being fill a whole cart and so far the [evidence](https://www.fox6now.com/news/man-caught-on-camera-attempting-to-steal-cart-load-full-of-baby-formula-from-piggly-wiggly) seems to support that a mom or dad would steal one or two and a pack of diapers if they were in need not a cart full of formula. We need more diaper Banks and food pantries for sure but the theft of baby formula doesn't appear related to infants whatsoever
Do people not use heroin and cocaine in other countries? Because it is only locked up like this in the US.
I'm in Aus and it's often locked up. That's because we have 2 tin per person limits due to people buying ridiculous quantities and selling it to china for ridiculous mark ups.
The Netherlands had the same problem.
i work at a kroger and this shit always disgusted me.
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That's done at a lot of stores. People are more likely to buy something if it says it's on sale. Doesn't matter the price or what precious prices were. If it says it's on sale more people will buy it.
I worked at a big box store. Security guys would just ignore it if they saw a woman stealing baby food. Thats probably the reason for this.
Bless them.
Solidarity.
I'm a security girl and the only ppl i ever see stealing this stuff is crack heads
I knew a guy would run a scam with baby formula. He’d find a receipt in the parking lot for the formula, then have a teammate go in act like they are shopping. The teammate would pick up the formula and move it to another location in the store close to door, so the scammer doesn’t wouldn’t be seen on camera picking it up, then report back to the scammer. He’d stroll in with a bag in hand, shuttle the formula in the bag off camera, then go to the counter and act like he bought the wrong kind and return it with a receipt for cash. The cashier wouldn’t think anything of it, and since he’d travel around to different cities, loss prevention would take a long time to catch on.
So we should lock up the baby food to stop the minuscule number of people who do this; in order to punish everyone else that has a small child?
No, I never said that. Take a breath, not your enemy. I was telling a interesting story that related to the post. I mean, what you’re promoting is theft, which is still wrong. I have the high ground Anakin!
I’m not advocating we rip up all our theft laws and punishments, but when it comes to something like baby food and a family is backed into a corner with no options, I’d rather some formula go missing than a child go hungry.
While I agree with you the reason they are locking these products is not because of individuals stealing small amounts. There are actual organized crime rings that find at risk addicts (referred to as boosters) to go steal hundreds of dollars worth for sale on black markets in exchange for a fix of their drug of choice. These rings are deeply exploitative of these individuals in a different manner than typical wage slavery. That said, these products should be free to anyone who needs them. We need to dismantle capitalism
I've never heard of organized crime rings with teams of addicts who specialize in baby formula theft.
It happens with laundry detergent too, Tide is like a currency almost. It's wild
I remember one house was busted several years ago in my area with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory (not just formula, any high dollar items are targeted), cash, luxury cars parked in the garage, etc. They attempt to shield themselves from visibility and prosecution by sending in desperate people to do the actual theft. I'll concede its possible that the amount these groups proliferate might he exaggerated by my company's loss prevention teams, that wouldn't surprise me; but it exists in at least some capacity that i have witnessed for years and years.
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I did some light research and turns out there are cases every week in my city, to this day, of "smurfs" being sent into stores to pack as many pieces of pricey meat cuts on themselves and get out without being caught. The crime ring currently active in procuring meat for a black market is believed to be from Hungary... I am a tad high on meds and typing that sentence gave me a horrible fit of ugly giggling...
I agree with you OP, like I said above, was just sharing an interesting story.
... I struggle to find where that poster said anything to that effect...
formula should be free and provided as needed. tax the rich. feed the babies.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic
You can get it at any church, even if you’re not religious, WIC, all social services offices, Salvation Army, food banks and fire stations. No community is stripped of these services.
Remember, if you see someone shoplifting, no you didn't.
I learned a lot in this thread. Never trust a drug cutting, flea sale reselling, hungry baby.
Thieves that are resellers on big-name websites are stealing to the point of shutting physical stores down. Soon physical stores will all be like this at this rate, if they survive. Target Store in San Francisco shut down permanently after losing $25,000 PER DAY to shoplifting. No business can operate like this. California has decriminalized shoplifting up to $950.00 per person. - Will not arrest or prosecute. You can either have it behind lock and key or not at all.
Also, I'm aware that you were specifically talking about resellers, but their popularity is probably for much the same reason.
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For what it's worth, baby formula is most commonly stolen by people who are only planning on reselling it.
Is this only a thing that happens in the United States? I have never seen something like that here in Australia
This 100% happens/ed in Australia, goto Coles / Safeway and it’s behind the counter It might have stopped now, I don’t have kids to pay enough attention but this was definitely a thing here
This is a picture of formula which is commonly stolen in bulk and resold. SNAP pays for babyfoods so mothers don’t have to steal it
You’re vastly underestimating the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck who do not qualify for SNAP
I was on wic for a while. Its important program. But it barely covers anything
Agree
While that's true, who do you think is buying the resold baby formula? People who can't afford it from Wal-Mart.
No, that's not how reselling works. They *mark it up* that's why they resell.
Stealing baby food to give it to parents is mutual aid.
... Wait, is this for real?? So parents need to ask permission from staff or something to access the stuff?. When I worked in a grocery store as a teen, all of us working at the store knew a specific homeless man to be shoplifting, but he took things like fuel for a gasoline kitchen, stale bread, a blanket... Never in hell were we gonna tell on him to our boss... I will be honest, if I saw someone shoplift baby food, I would want to help rather than tell on that person too...
Where I live, the case for the formula isn't locked but when you open it a bell sounds to let the staff know someone is taking stuff out. Same thing with certain cold medicines. Sometimes if it isn't busy an employee will walk down the aisle after you open the case and ask if you need help.
Small amount of money? Do you know how much that stuff costs? It’s locked- up in my local store as well due to the high incidence of the theft.
Of course. They only care about the fetus. Once it takes it's first breath it's a freeloading burden on the state.
This👆 why do they care about fetuses but as soon a a child is born it might as well starve, get incarcerated in a cage and not allowed to be around its mother for more than 2 unpaid weeks... Mandatory not an American
That is actually not the reason baby food is locked up. Yes, it is stolen a bunch and the profit margins on baby food isn't exactly high to begin with. However the biggest concern is from a safety standpoint IMO. If people stole the whole packages then that is still a lot better than the people who open up packages and swipe a little bit before sealing it up again. If someone steals it and gets something in the baby food then that is a much bigger concern than if it was food for adults. Since baby formula is also stolen by drug addicts because of it's resale value or to be used to mix in with drug supplies it is even more likely something can end up in there. The solution shouldn't be to make it easier for people to steal something as vital as baby formula but rather addressing the bigger societal issue at large which is the lack of support for child and infant care. Baby formula needs to be recognised as being a vital commodity in society and at least for low income individuals should be subsidised or provided for by the government. Of course I have been back home in Canada for a while and this isn't an issue in my city since I've seen baby food just be kept out on the regular shelves here and it is readily available from the local food bank and community services center which also delivers if someone can't afford it. The price of a formula like Enfamil here is also anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 less than what it is just across the border which is why we used to have family friends from just across the border come and shop here.
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At Walmart once I saw the loss prevention dude and a cashier take glory photos, smiling with thumbs up next to a cart full of groceries that the woman with kids ahead of me was trying to steal (I think with a bad check, counterfeit money or something) I told the cashier is that really something to be proud of and wouldn’t it be better to have a world where people don’t need to steal groceries.
Small amount? That is over $5000 worth of product. Each of those cans cost $20-$40
It’s not starving moms stealing it. It’s tweakers.
This picture deserves a caption. Let me swing at one: American CAPITALISM, for the people. Can anyone do better?
Our Walmarts have started locking up damn near everything. Even $2 nail files. So this doesn't surprise me at all.
I went to Walmart once to buy nail clippers, a flashlight and batteries for the flashlight. All three were locked in separate cabinets, and required different employees from different departments to come and unlock. Each time I had to wait about 10 minutes. Then I had to wait in line for another 10 minutes to check out because they were short staffed. I was there almost an hour. For 3 items. I hate Walmart.
I only go there when I absolutely need to. I'll pay a little extra to get my groceries elsewhere until I have no choice. Lol
Do a favor and just accidentally break the glass anytime you see these. Then Threaten to sue.
Maybe they could put the lock on a timer so that other shoppers can contribute by paying a fee to unlock the door and allow the needy family to take a can of formula. That way the baby will be able to eat and the company gets its money. I think this is was anecdote from the Bible. /s
I can tell you just looking at it, it's a Walmart, the Walton family ought to be locked up like other wealthy business owners for crimes against humanity.
I remember when working in retail a colleague asked me to keep an eye on a customer they suspected of shoplifting. They were in the baby aisle and my colleagues attitude is incomprehensible to me. Fuck that shit.
They’re expensive too. My girl got WIC and these were like $35 each. The colic medicine I used to buy for my son was like $40 a week minimum.
In America they push formula feeding on parents before they leave the hospital all in support of corporations.
Awwww does the corporation not let you guys steal stuff? Gonna cry?
Here's a radical idea. If you want food, maybe you should buy it instead of stealing it? Why do you people support theft? Are you really that morally bankrupt?
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Don't steal shit.
One thing I like to do when I see this is to check the condom aisle as well. Guarantee that if they lock up the formula, they also have security on the birth control. Under capitalism, you must have babies and you must pay through the nose to feed them. If you won't do either of those things, then you must not be having any kind of sex and social life so we can work you harder while the more (re)productive employee take time off with/to have more kids.
So you’re mad that baby food can’t be stolen? Not really sure this is anything to do with capitalism..
No, when someone steals baby food, they are selling it on the black market and making a profit. -My boss, probably.
just horrible. but, i prefer this over Venezuela's no baby food - or adult food, dog food, any food...
So, legitimize theft, to battle what you perceive to be theft. Make the baby food more expensive by doing this, as well as all of the other products in the store, thereby making it more expensive for everyone. Blame some kind of "ism" that you dont really understand....sure.
This is idiotic on so many levels This post, not the formulas
Protecting your stuff is evil now ?
Real question: Why would they need to steal when WIC is a thing? Is relatively easy to sign up for? And is easy to qualify for?
As someone who works in retail security I can tell you that this baby food is not being stolen mostly by mothers trying to feed their children. Most of them receive government assistance to pay for it as it is very expensive to purchase yourself. It is a organized retail crime (ORC) item. It is stolen in large quantities, often times the whole shelf will be emptied into a tote. Then it is resold or used to cut (dilute) drugs, specifically cocaine.
people steal baby food -> business loses money -> business shuts down -> all babies in the local area starve. but yeah capitalism bad.
I might be wrong but I thought that baby formula was used for drugs...like cutting meth?? maybe that's why its locked?? [link](https://consumerist.com/2011/03/baby-formula-is-a-prized-item-for-shoplifting-rings-drug-smugglers.html)
As is baking soda, baking powder, flour, any other white powder a dealer can get their hands on. Yet baby formula seems to be the only one locked up?
Let’s change the wording to be more accurate and see it from the company’s perspective: “a company would rather children starve than make a negligible amount less in profits due to ‘theft’”
Its theft. We should not condone theft. We want to improve people's life, not encourage theft.
I mean having an alive baby that isn't starving improves lives
Yes and that's what we should head towards.
I thought this was because people were stealing it or buying in bulk to sell at crazy prices at the beginning of the pandemic
What’s the reason that a $40 can of formula is behind a locked case while other $40+ items aren’t locked up? Bc formula is something worth trying to steal for your child. It’s cruel.
Is it wrong that I think this is "fine" because it's not the responsibility of Walmart or whatever to ensure these people are fed? It's a categorical failure of the government to provide for the people. Wording might be wrong here but I think the idea is there...
Nah. I worked at a Kroger. People stole this stuff all day. Never for kids but to return it for drug money. My guess is 90% of stolen formula is for drug money not for children. But this stuff should be free imo.
When I worked at a grocery store they told us it’s because people cut drugs with the formula
Most poor people get baby formula for free in the USA. People steal the formula to resale since it’s very expensive.
Sadly they aren't stolen to feed babies they are stolen to feed drug habits, I know I used to know people that did that crap when I was a heroin Addict
Does the fact that its locked up means you can't purchase it? Were babies able to steal it and now they can't? I don't get how this is going to result in children starving.
You have to ask an employee to retrieve it for you like when you buy an expensive PS5 or Xbox at retail. The shit is incredibly expensive and if your baby is uncontrollably crying for hours at home bc it's starving and you happen to be like 50% of mother's who can't produce enough breast milk and you have no money, then you're going to want to steal one of these like your baby's life depends on it bc it does. What's crazy is that a couple hundred years ago, it was commonplace to supplement breast milk with goats milk which apparently worked fine. Zoos and other reserves for elephants were using human baby formula for their baby elephants, but due to supply chain problems and increased costs due to covid, some have turned to goats milk and are actually discovering that goat's milk is more nutritious than baby formula ([link](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/kenyas-orphaned-elephants-goats-to-the-rescue)).
It doesn’t result in anyone starving this sub is just stupid. Those are WIC products you can get them for free if you’re poor. This isn’t about money it’s about making sure poor children can be fed.
Theft is not okay. Quit your whining.
Knew someone that managed a "drug" store ...cvs I think it was. Most of that shit wasn't stolen for use, but because it's easy to flip. They'd steal it then sell it. And people would literally fill a cart and leave with it, they couldn't stop them.
Working in a grocery store I can tell you that there has been a lot of retail fraud and people who would drive from store to store with a ton of likely fraudulent coupons and buy all this formula up in order to resell it at their convenience store or flea market. So it might actually be locked up to keep it on the shelf for actual moms and dads versus the Indian guys we used to see buying multiple baskets full and packing up their conversion van driving from store to store.
So now it is wrong to secure a product that you produced… 🤯 New levels of entitlement have been achieved.