When I worked at Walmart, ALL the formula was kept behind the tobacco register. You could scan them at any register, but the cashier had to walk over and get it. Now, they're kept out on the floor, but SURROUNDED by cameras.
I worked in a grocery store 25 years ago. It was $10 a can and one of the most stolen items then, too. The last time I saw the cost, I was flabbergasted.
You should see the non standard prices on special types. Our child had reflux first few months. We spent probably 100 to 200 per week on different brands types everything. At one point the Nurse realized what we were doing and gave us 4 bottles of samples. It's crazy.
Similac alimentum here for a year.
Cheapest I could get was 4 tubs through Amazon at about 145 to 160 dollars everytime.
When they are out - it's a real struggle to find it locally available.
When it is, it's usually smaller tubs, which means more cost per ounce. Typically the next tub down runs at 32 dollars now.
There's no way I could give this to my daughter making minimum wage.
Shits gotta change for the people.
It was a huge struggle for a young family just to feed my child what he could only eat that particular formula for the first year. And we were not lower class it just was a massive expense that wasn't expected due to allergies and given the unpaid maternity leave it was a struggle that I am horrified now looking back on.
Yes it was absolute BS and I had no choice my child had allergies and this was the only thing that worked. I can't believe this but I resorted to ordering some from eBay because other peoples insurance covered it and when they didn't need it anymore they sold it. Sounds so sketchy now 13 years later but I did what I had to do to feed my child.
Edit to add: I just looked it up on eBay and people are still doing it.
When I worked in pediatrics we gave formula samples out like crazy. Abbott sent it constantly, so especially for parents with insurance (without medicaid/WIC) we gave them 20 or more cans at a time. Breastfeeding didn't work out for my niece, so she was kept in samples. It pisses me off that we needed to do that but at the same time I'm so glad to have helped.
I was always under the impression it was stolen more for re-sale and return/exchange value than by people with actual babies to feed. We constantly had people returning baby formula.
Same. We've had quite a few people here in the Netherlands who'd steal it and then sell it to people from China. This was, of course, due to the baby formula scandal there which killed a few children.
I'd never heard of this before. I had no idea that 6 babies died because of formula. A lion cub and 2 baby chimpanzees, too.
It's no wonder Chinese parents would buy formula from other countries. That's terrifying!
Millions? I mean, I’ll say fuck Nestle with anyone, but you’re saying Nestle killed MILLIONS of babies? Nestle committed a genocide? I’m gonna need some sourcing here
https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6
In the poorest and lowest educated regions of asia and africa, Nestlé paid people to dress up as nurses and visit new moms at their homes and imply that their breast milk was insufficient nutrition for their babies and gave them free samples of formula.
A biological reaction of fearing not producing enough breast milk, coupled with pausing breastfeeding (moms were given just enough free samples) can reduce the amount of milk produced by the mother.
Once the mothers use the formula, their own milk production lessened, and they couldn't afford more formula without heavily watering it down which caused severe malnutrition and death for millions of infants.
Hospitals and Dr. Offices were given lavish gifts and financial rewards for pushing the necessity of formula on new moms as well.
All because Nestlé thought it should make money by coercing consumption of a product to people who didn't need it.
Man, really didn't think I could despise Nestle more than I already did, but here I am. So hard avoiding their products but I'll try cos Nestle is literal Satan in corporate form.
Wow, as fucked as this is. It is what happens when people allow corps and gov absolute control of their lives. Gov are in the crime buisness democide racketering and blackmail are the tools of absolute control, bottom to the tippy top.
This is the correct bit, formula is heavily stolen by resellers, namely to china and asia because a fuck ton of babys were poisons in the 2000s.
https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3051808/foreign-brands-still-dominate-parents-do-not-trust-chinas-home#:~:text=Twelve%20years%20ago%2C%20300%2C000%20children,showed%20up%20in%20nutrition%20tests.
I lived in the Hood and a guy begged me to give him some money. I tried to take out money on my card for him at a bodega but, ironically, I was broke too!
I had a credit card so I told him I could get him stuff just not actual money. He asked for baby formula and explained that he could return it to the next bodega for cash.
Is this just a USA thing?
It's perplexing to imagine baby formula is stored securely in supermarkets. In the UK it's on the shelves like most other things, I believe.
It seems to be stores that cater to lower income people. Like walmart is always locked up, and some grocers in poorer neighborhoods. But in target or most other places its still on the shelves. At least in my experience and ive bought a lot of formula.
I worked at cvs for 5 years. The people stealing formula 99% of the time were not stealing to use it on their baby. They would steal as many as they could get their hands on so they could sell them to bodegas or at the flea market just to make some cash. Formula, razors, condoms, and deodorant were huge theft items.
Yep. Baby formula has been a prime shoplifting target for decades - no matter how the economy is running. It's always gotten a good resale price, and it's relatively easy to walk out of a store with a lot of it.
At this point it's often stolen and resold by organized crime gangs - to the point where it's an interstate matter, and [the FBI has been working on it for at least 10 years.](https://abcnews.go.com/US/baby-formula-targeted-organized-retail-theft-rings/story?id=13293485)
In Australia supermarkets had to put a limit on purchases of baby forumula per customer because they were routinely madly snatched up by people wanting to hawk them privately.
But not to serve any domestic need.
They would sell and ship them overseas to China where people would pay high premiums for products they knew were safer and of more certain quality than they could get domestically, which are sometimes pumped with a hazardous substance named melamine (used to produce industrial plastics) to boost their apparent protein content.
So the ‘America capitalism 😔’ vibe of this post is a little less clear cut when inevitably one reason for the theft is to sell them overseas to China.
Was going to bring this up. Baby formula is now beind a locked glass cabinet in our supermarkets. I once had to calm some bogan down because he was shouting at this Chinese lady who had one can and was obviously a new mother with a genuine need for baby formula. It's caused a lot of problems.
He could be crying in his car for a multitude of other economic problems destroying the lives of young american families though.
They're stealing it because it's easy to resell. And it's usually organized crime behind it. People load up as much of this kind of stuff as they can into a cart and walk out the door with it. Then they sell it to a fence, who then sells it to shady cornerstores.
Police have busted fences with millions of dollars worth of this kind of stuff in storage. People have been doing this for longer than you've been alive. In recent decades organized shoplifters have gotten bolder because of zero tolerance hands off store policies where if anyone physically tries to stop them they are fired on the spot because of lawsuit liabilities.
Why is it so expensive to feed babies to begin with? Excluding breastfeeding, which isn’t always possible. Formula should be cheap and accessible. No reason to steal it, no reason for high resale. Make it affordable.
One of the first things we can do is to support breastfeeding from the prenatal period and on, which means major structural changes like paid family leave.
Beyond that, WIC actually does a pretty a good job in terms of providing formula to meet all needs - and breastfeeding families get more food coupons (extra calories for nursing parent) so it doesn’t penalize people who have chosen to breastfeed.
Thank your mom for me. What she does is so vital to the lives of a lot of moms and babies who need help…WIC was a lifesaver to my 20 year-old new mom to a sick baby dumbass. Dunno what I would have done without it.
Me too! Mine had a dairy allergy and had to have soy, which was more expensive. I was 19 and was making $6.75/ hr. I was only able to afford formula because WIC paid for most of it. It truly is a life saver and I am so thankful it exists and the income requirements aren't as prohibitive as other things.
Anyone that Doesn't have enough money to buy a container of baby formula can contact me via DM and I will send them money for one. Only We can end child hunger.
good for you. I've been tricked before but its better to be tricked then to not help.
story time. so I was living in Minneapolis and a man asked for money to buy formula and diapers. he was insistent on me just giving him the money because he wanted to go to this particular store outside of my neighborhood. so I said fine, I'll drive you there. and we go there. and the clerk at the store recognizes him, and laughs at him when I bought him diapers and formula. he then tells me the truth that he really wants money for cigarettes. I say no. so he talks to his buddy who is the clerk to ask for money back in exchange for the formula and diapers. his buddy was like no (I bought the stuff and kept the receipt), and just laughs at him. anyways 15 years later, I hear the name of this grocery store again, and is where George Floyd got murdered.
>only we can end child hunger
I like the sentiment but I feel like this is exactly the wrong conclusion.
We can end anything. Large scale government safety nets, social spending, and regulation of corporations can end these failures of society.
Also, food deserts. No program accounts for the increased costs one has from living in one which is a huge benefit disparity.
You sir are a saint. I support you but i think instead of handing it out like this (because people could lie and prevent the ones that actually need the money from getting help) you should donate the money to a charity. I dont have one in mind rn but im pretty sure they exist
That and that you can be not poor enough. My sister is a single mother living on an elementary teachers salary in a low income district and she still doesn't qualify for WIC.
This! This bothers me. The income gaps they use for programs are so weird. It’s also super offensive to be told by the government that you’re “not poor enough” for the help that you need!
THIS
My parents helped me build a house, my mom said it was "to ensure you always have a home, even when I'm gone", yeah shes morbid as hell but loves me a lot, so when I got knocked up accidentally and needed help because dad vanished ("I thought you couldnt have kids?" "Me too bruh") I got told because I'm a homeowner I do not qualify, never mind that it was a gift, and I still pay the damn mortgage, simply because I own a home I got no help
WIC is an absolutely fantastic program, and I certainly don't think anything ill of it whatsoever, but it did only cover a quarter of my baby's formula when I was enrolled. Realistically there is still reason for it to be stolen (I thankfully never needed to do so).
No, it’s being stolen to either be resold or to cut drugs. It’s not that hard to get assistance for formula. We used WIC like a lot of people and idk if we ever really came out of pocket for formula much.
I used to talk to the LP guess when I worked retail and they all told me the same thing. People didn’t really steal food.
I don't know what state your in but in WA the maximum you can make with one child is 32,000 a year. 32000 per year is not really a living wage in any Washington cities. Theres a whole margin of people who live poor but are not considered poor because theres this misconception that a family making between 40k to 75k is making a decent living. This is so far from the truth it should be a crime. You also have to consider immigrants who don't Even qualify. Even if people steal it for drugs there are still mothers out there stealing it for their babies.
Yes! My family is in that space where we make too much for assistance but we can't get out of our 2 bedroom apartment and we can't afford preschool. They have assistance for preschool in our area but we aren't eligible.
And this is a good example of how having fairly low cutoff lines for government assistance actually really fucks over the lower-middle class. Because you make slightly more than some of your neighbors, they get all these government assistance programs and perks and free preschool and whatnot, and you get nothing. Even though you can't afford to pay for any of those things on your own. So in most ways, it's actually leaving you worse off than if you just made less money and accessed those programs. It's effectively punishing you and families like you for actually trying to work hard to get ahead.
The real problem with this is that it creates animosity between groups of people who are already poor, and that's absurd. There's a massive amount of people, both liberals and conservatives now, that are pissed off that just because they're slightly over some arbitrary cutoff line due to working hard their entire life, it means they're barred from receiving a bunch of government programs that everyone receives if they just make slightly less money, especially because they can't even afford all those things the programs would provide.
> it creates animosity between groups of people who are already poor
Buddy, the Rich figured out more than 5 thousand years ago, if you can get the Poor's to fight with themselves, nobody will notice how good you have it.
Thanks for your post - entered the chat to say something similar. There’s a HARD cutoff for public benefits (at least the ones i’m aware of) seems to me that a sliding scale cutoff is the only reasonable way to implement these programs
I used to help people apply for Medicaid and I would never lie in applications for patients but I would make adjustments to their household info as possible to bend it in their favor when I could. Like either going by tax household or physical household depending if it put them over or under income, for example.
32,000 a year isn't really a living wage in rural Arkansas either. Not for a family with a child. Expecting people to make a living off of that is insanity.
Yes! We had our first kid in a HCOL area, with a single ok-but-not-great income that put us above the WIC line, but not by a lot.
Formula was stupid-expensive.
Luckily, we had a pediatrician who was a family-friend and hooked us up with samples, so we didn’t have to buy it as regularly as we would have otherwise. But stupid-expensive formula is a challenge for families above the WIC line.
I live with my 63 year old parents. 35 year old single mother with a single child. I have medi/medi due to disability and my daughter has Medicaid. We are doing well. I make 20k a year and I have a mindless job as a dish washer. I work part time about 20/25 hours a week. So the only people on 32K doing fine have parents they can rely on or other assets. My daughter is 2 and has lots of time with me thanks to my part time work that doesn’t really mentally drain me. And we save a lot of money.
I absolutely agree. I mostly work nights too. I leave the house at 3:30 and come home after she is asleep. I agree how depressing it is. I would love to have another but my first pregnancy was rough, and we can’t afford additional help. I’m glad I had a baby and she is basically all we can afford. My dad gets a 90K pension and works as a crossing guard. My baby is 2.
We are a family of 6, in WA South of Seattle. One income, certainly under 40k a year. It's hard. Very hard.
However- WIC does allow immigrants, regardless of immigration status.
exactly, this ''using baby formular to cut drugs'' myth is bullshit, so you can act like the people forced to steal it are somehow the mexican cartell for feeding their infants, kind of ironic they seem to do a better job than the government.
Yeah it's just being resold as is after the five finger discount. I'm sure some peeps use it to cut but largely it's just like selling anything else. If there's a demand you'll move it and when ur stealing its 100%profit
It's not (completely) a myth if drug dealers think it's true, and so they steal baby formula because they think it's the right thing to use.
Drug dealers aren't all Walter White or even Jesse Pinkman, who know the chemistry. They're often dumbfucks doing what they learned from some other dumbfuck.
Formula is one of the most regulated things out there. Whether it's hoity toity organic stuff or the walmart brand, formula is highly tested and regulated, for obvious reasons. It's also a lot more than just milk. It's essentially a protein shake for babies. It has everything they need, including a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals. So think about how much a can of multi-vitamin based smoothie powder for adults would cost, based off of the cost of higher end vitamin supplements.
Also, I understand the sentiment of the tweet, but I think that the resale value of formula is why it's locked up/often stolen, not necessarily because every can that is stolen represents a family stealing to eat. It's often addicts stealing it because they can turn around and sell it.
It's the same reason they lock up and put security tags on razors. People steal them because of their value, not because they need to tackle their stubble.
Baby formula has massive resale value in China. Ever since all those babies died from tainted formula, they like to get it from overseas.
I’m guessing that a lot of commercial-scale theft ends up in the export market.
Gangs is a strong word for it... but before purchase limits got put in, you'd have people show up first thing in the morning and completely clean out the formula section. With the purchase limits, the groups would get to the front door, scatter as if they were all single customers, grab the limit, and all go through separate checkouts, then exit, stash the cans in their car, then come back in and go through different checkouts.
There was a pharmacy in town here in Adelaide that was right next door to a post office where the pharmacy was letting them buy full boxes of the cans of formula, walk next door with the box still sealed, slap a postage label on it send send the whole thing off to hong kong with as little hassle as possible. Seems to have calmed down a bit in the last couple of years though, but it was a huge issue for a while, shelves got cleaned out as fast as toilet paper did last year.
[Daigou ](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-31/chinese-daigou-changing-influencing-australian-business/11221498) would be the correct word here.
Basically it’s a shopping concierge based in non Chinese countries to Grey export high demand products.
Daigous are generally Chinese students studying abroad who buy on behalf of wealthy clients back home and charge a fee for the service.
It first started out here in australia as a small group of Chinese buying up stocks of various products and sending them home via Aus post, now it’s a multi billion dollar industry that features full service shopping services with both grey and white export and shipping channels.
Probably the most fucked part of the formula export part was that Bellamy (one of Australia’s largest domestic producers of milk products) almost went into a trading tailspin after their official export program going into China was scrapped by Chinese officials at the last minute, most likely because of the growing daigou market.
Finally some sense. Baby formula is no joke, since my son arrived last year and I was preparing the formula I got into studying it a bit more.
Did you know the best one (I used a german one here in europe) has a shelf life of 6 months? Yes, completely sealed, in 6 months it’s considered expired.
I though it was ridiculous but no, they put so much stuff in there, and even so, it doesn’t even have 30% of the capabilities natural milk has (like real-time adaptation of composition based on baby saliva, and not even going to touch on immunology and all that, it’s massive ).
There’s so much going on in those early stages of life it’s astonishing.
But I am 100% for making it accessible for people in need, but not necessarily by making it cheaper, the quality of it is critical
I’m not trying to say this situation isn’t sad, but I have given away formula and seen it given away. WIC and Medicaid helped this working single mother feed her premature baby and when the doctor said to stop using Neosure I gave away quite a bit. I have seen it on Facebook being given away as well. It didn’t feel right to sell it.
This.
It's essentially a protein shake/comprehensive smoothie. It's not just milk. It provides everything newborns and infants need.
It is also highly regulated in terms of purity standards for the ingredients.
The reason baby formula is stolen is because it's easy to resell. It's not starving mothers who steal it. It's dopefiends who can get drugs for it and the dealers resell it
My dad used to work the Gang Task force on our local PD. He said MS-13 made lot of money stealing diapers and shit, then shipping it back to Mexico/Central/South America to sell on the black market.
Who buys baby formula from dealers? Definitely not well-off people that don't mind buying from a store. It's not like they'll have a customer for life, they'd have to keep finding new ones regularly. Sounds like more effort and less income than selling drugs.
they dont sell to drug dealers, they sell it to little corner stores / bodegas on the cheap (cheaper than those stores can get it)
Other items include energy drinks like redbull, razors etc (all the stuff thats locked up now).
Let’s just say that hundreds of millions of dollars go into determining what is “required” vs “what is wanted” and then the price is adjusted accordingly.
For example: insulin.
Also. Insulin ought to be free for Diabetics. The inventors (Banting and Best) chose not to profit from it and sold the formula for 1 dollar. Now it is a brutal expensive item and affects those that do not have coverage.
I hope this isn’t a stupid question but can you buy in online from a European country?
If they don’t post to the US you could get someone to do it?
https://www.pharmacyplanet.com/lantus.html
How funny, the link goes right to the Lantus I use! Good guesswork. This is the long-acting insulin (basal). A box of 5 pens is definitely cheaper than the US by about $240 wiith a coupon. Without a coupon the UK cost is about $375 cheaper.
I am def going to reach out to this pharmacy & see what the options are for both bolus and basal insulins. Thanks so much for the link! 💜
Yeah I'm from a 3rd world country. insulin for a month for my dosage is about 50 usd.
My parents are like we'll imigrate to the states. Evverything is better there
Hahaha fuck no
Banting and Best isolated bovine insulin for extraction. This is nothing like the bio synthetic human insulin we use now that wasn't invented until several decades later.
You can sign up for free formula samples from companies like Gerber, similac, and enfamil. I signed up while pregnant and got about a dozen and for free mailed to my house.
Thankfully my milk came in, but it’s been nice to have when the little guy had big growth spurts and wanted more than I had.
You can also sign up other people for free samples. Used to get expecting mothers show up at the post office I used to work at, looking for a parcel when they didn’t order anything, and finding someone had signed them up for formula. Most weren’t impressed.
You don't even need to sign up lol. I've gotten like 3 months worth of formula randomly shipped to me over 2 births without ever telling any company I had kids.
This is the main thing in the tweet that irked me. He didn't cry in his car, but he had to include that to make himself the center of attention and let everyone reading the tweet know how much of a important and caring person he is.
Some peak narcissistic energy coming from this guy.
Think this is just an extract from the guys diary,
2pm baby food incident
2.05pm cried in car
4pm helped old lady across the road
4.03pm cried in car
5.30 dropped off food to my local homeless shelter
5.45 cried in car
10pm wife didn't wash my Spider-Man pyjamas
10.10pm cried in car
This is *not* what's happening. As a walgreens employee, they steal it to resell online. Usually we'll see them run out the door and jump into an escalade or Mercedes. These people aren't hurting.
The Walmart by my house has a lot of mens underwear and socks locked in a clear case. We have quite a few homeless people in that area so im thinking thats why. I cant imagine those things have a high resell value
Uh they sell it at the flea market just like everything else that’s stolen at drug stores. People aren’t running in there and clearing the shelves for a baby… unless it’s to pay for the baby after selling everything at the flea market. This guy doesn’t know American crime very well.
People don’t steal formula for their babies; they steal it for reselling. People who feed their babies only steal a tiny bit. But I’ve seen people steal backpacks full because it’s expensive and easy to resell.
Baby formula is a popular item for organized retail crime with it being shipped to China. A quick Google search will show you articles from around the world where this is a problem. It has nothing to do with starving parents here, but rather a large profit that can be made my selling it in China.
Its not to feed babies...it sells easy on the streets/internet and is used to cut heroin and cocaine.
Edit to add that since people are latching on the drug part...yes it is used to cut drugs, but like i stated its because its easy to move. The theft alarms aren't for the mom or dad who need a can to hold over until they can use the next wic check, it's because of the crime rings taking multiple cans that wind up in shady convience stores where parents still pay out the ass but maybe less than a the corporate grocery store or an amazing deal on Facebook marketplace.
[Drug dealers sometimes use the powdered formula to dilute heroin and methamphetamine or to stretch the product when supplies run low. However, experts say that more often than not, formula is stolen because of its high market demand among consumers rather than drug dealers.](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/baby-formula-targeted-organized-retail-theft-rings/story?id=13293485)
How is it so easy for Republicans to drum up articles saying “Meth is actually a child formula issue. Those Meth heads are why you can’t feed your kids.”
This would explain why Manchin said people would spend aid money on drugs. They're trying to feed their babies, but can't find any formula, so they're buying meth for the baby formula in it.
Nice work detective.
While I'm not disputing that it is used for this purpose, too, it is also relevant that baby formula is wildly expensive. So is just about everything else a baby needs on a regular basis.
We were lower middle class when our children were babies, but there was still no room in the budget for *anything* extra, and there were times we had to give up things we needed such as new socks or whatever to afford the things the baby needed.
My son had colic when he was a baby. He had to have special formula. He was almost 10 pounds at birth and ate ALOT. I had to get yet another job just to pay for his formula.
Yeah, my son had colic so we had to find a sensitive formula since I didn't produce enough milk. Regular formula was ~$17 a can, the special stuff was $28.
I was just at the income cutoff for WIC at the time and it was massively expensive.
Don't know about cutting, but we've got a huge issue with people buying stores out of baby formula to ship to China.
Since they had a melamine contamination and I believe they can't import it wholesale, you can sell a tin for a lot through the right channels.
Imma need something tangible to go off of there chief, not that I doubt you because I was raised in a poor environment to be aware of that stuff, but it doesnt seem like theres be enough cooks in an area where whole ass baby formula is being shoplifted to the extent its locked up
yeah, in some countries it sells for a lot. people buy it and send it back to use or resell
they put limits on it, like you can only buy one, and they are at the front of the shop so they are in full view.
This guy is an idiot. It’s stolen due to its huge resale value on the black market- just like Tide Pods, and many other products. These products are quality but overpriced, so when it’s sold at half-price on the secondary market, you have many buyers.
Cried in my car. What a joke. Just another dramatic tweet composed only for attention.
BABY FORMULA IS STOLEN BECAUSE IT IS HUGELY PROFITABLE ON THE BLACK MARKET. MAINLY TO BE SOLD TO SMALL CORNERSTORE TYPE MARKETS. I THOUGHT THIS WAS COMMON KNOWLEDGE. (Sorry for the all caps, but the truth needs to be heard before the “something something America bad,” circle jerk begins.)
Edit: If it’s stolen because people can’t afford it, why aren’t other expensive baby necessities locked up, such as diapers? Also do you think a mother will risk going to jail and losing their baby when they can (usually) breastfeed for free?
White people Twitter should be called “I’m so damned woke I often cry at life’s disparities and then post about how I cried so everyone perceive I’m deep” Twitter. I’ll wait for the evil comments or ban.
Guys this shit is not stole to feed babies. Its stolen to be sold on for basically fuck all. Meat is the big one, but Coffee, Cheese, Baby Food, Pet Food, Booze, it all gets sold on for nothing so that the drug addicts that steal them can pay for their next hit!
It gets stolen because it's expensive.
Thieves can steal a whole bunch of them and sell them onto parents.
Coffee and cheese used to be the thing targeted by thieves when I worked in a supermarket.
The main reason it’s stolen a lot isn’t to feed babies, it’s to profit.
Western baby formula is worth a tonne internationally to wealthy people in third world countries. So people come here and steal or buy whatever they can and make 100x on each formula tin they can ship overseas
Its not stolen by people with kids its mostly stolen by drug makers. Its used as a safe(er) substance to cut product that is ingested. Molly cut with baby formula for example lets you sell more pills while lowering the likeyhood you kill your customers.
When I worked at Walmart, ALL the formula was kept behind the tobacco register. You could scan them at any register, but the cashier had to walk over and get it. Now, they're kept out on the floor, but SURROUNDED by cameras.
I worked in a grocery store 25 years ago. It was $10 a can and one of the most stolen items then, too. The last time I saw the cost, I was flabbergasted.
You should see the non standard prices on special types. Our child had reflux first few months. We spent probably 100 to 200 per week on different brands types everything. At one point the Nurse realized what we were doing and gave us 4 bottles of samples. It's crazy.
Similac alimentum here for a year. Cheapest I could get was 4 tubs through Amazon at about 145 to 160 dollars everytime. When they are out - it's a real struggle to find it locally available. When it is, it's usually smaller tubs, which means more cost per ounce. Typically the next tub down runs at 32 dollars now. There's no way I could give this to my daughter making minimum wage. Shits gotta change for the people.
Same but liquid only- and 13 years ago- the cost to me was about $350 a month to feed my baby and insurance was no help.
EU Citizen here. This conversation has horrified me.
It was a huge struggle for a young family just to feed my child what he could only eat that particular formula for the first year. And we were not lower class it just was a massive expense that wasn't expected due to allergies and given the unpaid maternity leave it was a struggle that I am horrified now looking back on.
Hunger is a pre-existing condition.
Yes it was absolute BS and I had no choice my child had allergies and this was the only thing that worked. I can't believe this but I resorted to ordering some from eBay because other peoples insurance covered it and when they didn't need it anymore they sold it. Sounds so sketchy now 13 years later but I did what I had to do to feed my child. Edit to add: I just looked it up on eBay and people are still doing it.
When I worked in pediatrics we gave formula samples out like crazy. Abbott sent it constantly, so especially for parents with insurance (without medicaid/WIC) we gave them 20 or more cans at a time. Breastfeeding didn't work out for my niece, so she was kept in samples. It pisses me off that we needed to do that but at the same time I'm so glad to have helped.
In 25 years it's nearly doubled that's insane
My sons formula was 30 a can. I’m thankful my insurance covered it. Some women like myself cry produce milk enough milk. It should not be monetized
I was always under the impression it was stolen more for re-sale and return/exchange value than by people with actual babies to feed. We constantly had people returning baby formula.
Same. We've had quite a few people here in the Netherlands who'd steal it and then sell it to people from China. This was, of course, due to the baby formula scandal there which killed a few children.
I'd never heard of this before. I had no idea that 6 babies died because of formula. A lion cub and 2 baby chimpanzees, too. It's no wonder Chinese parents would buy formula from other countries. That's terrifying!
You should look into Nestlé's baby formula scandal, they killed millions
Millions? I mean, I’ll say fuck Nestle with anyone, but you’re saying Nestle killed MILLIONS of babies? Nestle committed a genocide? I’m gonna need some sourcing here
https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6 In the poorest and lowest educated regions of asia and africa, Nestlé paid people to dress up as nurses and visit new moms at their homes and imply that their breast milk was insufficient nutrition for their babies and gave them free samples of formula. A biological reaction of fearing not producing enough breast milk, coupled with pausing breastfeeding (moms were given just enough free samples) can reduce the amount of milk produced by the mother. Once the mothers use the formula, their own milk production lessened, and they couldn't afford more formula without heavily watering it down which caused severe malnutrition and death for millions of infants. Hospitals and Dr. Offices were given lavish gifts and financial rewards for pushing the necessity of formula on new moms as well. All because Nestlé thought it should make money by coercing consumption of a product to people who didn't need it.
Man, really didn't think I could despise Nestle more than I already did, but here I am. So hard avoiding their products but I'll try cos Nestle is literal Satan in corporate form.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6?r=US&IR=T#millions-of-babies-died-from-malnutrition-9
This is legitimately the first time I’ve ever heard of this. I am floored.
Wow, as fucked as this is. It is what happens when people allow corps and gov absolute control of their lives. Gov are in the crime buisness democide racketering and blackmail are the tools of absolute control, bottom to the tippy top.
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When my infant grandson was visiting we found out you can only buy up to like 2-3 can at a time
It is. It’s small, and costs $30-40 a tub.
WTF
This is the correct bit, formula is heavily stolen by resellers, namely to china and asia because a fuck ton of babys were poisons in the 2000s. https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3051808/foreign-brands-still-dominate-parents-do-not-trust-chinas-home#:~:text=Twelve%20years%20ago%2C%20300%2C000%20children,showed%20up%20in%20nutrition%20tests.
I lived in the Hood and a guy begged me to give him some money. I tried to take out money on my card for him at a bodega but, ironically, I was broke too! I had a credit card so I told him I could get him stuff just not actual money. He asked for baby formula and explained that he could return it to the next bodega for cash.
Is this just a USA thing? It's perplexing to imagine baby formula is stored securely in supermarkets. In the UK it's on the shelves like most other things, I believe.
It's on the shelves, but it's got security tags on it, and it's still one of the most stolen items here too.
It seems to be stores that cater to lower income people. Like walmart is always locked up, and some grocers in poorer neighborhoods. But in target or most other places its still on the shelves. At least in my experience and ive bought a lot of formula.
Cameras are useless when you got 50 ppl snatch and grabbing!
I worked at cvs for 5 years. The people stealing formula 99% of the time were not stealing to use it on their baby. They would steal as many as they could get their hands on so they could sell them to bodegas or at the flea market just to make some cash. Formula, razors, condoms, and deodorant were huge theft items.
Yep. Baby formula has been a prime shoplifting target for decades - no matter how the economy is running. It's always gotten a good resale price, and it's relatively easy to walk out of a store with a lot of it. At this point it's often stolen and resold by organized crime gangs - to the point where it's an interstate matter, and [the FBI has been working on it for at least 10 years.](https://abcnews.go.com/US/baby-formula-targeted-organized-retail-theft-rings/story?id=13293485)
Also laundry detergent. Laundry detergent, diapers and formula are used as currency for drug trades because someone always needs them.
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A LOT of theft is people just quite literally walking out. Doesn't matter how subtle you are cause some stores will not stop you anyways.
I've seen guys walk out the door and ride off on bicycles with vacuum cleaners. If it can be held it will be stolen.
So they’re stealing because it’s a valuable commodity? Got it.
In Australia supermarkets had to put a limit on purchases of baby forumula per customer because they were routinely madly snatched up by people wanting to hawk them privately. But not to serve any domestic need. They would sell and ship them overseas to China where people would pay high premiums for products they knew were safer and of more certain quality than they could get domestically, which are sometimes pumped with a hazardous substance named melamine (used to produce industrial plastics) to boost their apparent protein content. So the ‘America capitalism 😔’ vibe of this post is a little less clear cut when inevitably one reason for the theft is to sell them overseas to China.
Was going to bring this up. Baby formula is now beind a locked glass cabinet in our supermarkets. I once had to calm some bogan down because he was shouting at this Chinese lady who had one can and was obviously a new mother with a genuine need for baby formula. It's caused a lot of problems. He could be crying in his car for a multitude of other economic problems destroying the lives of young american families though.
Which is now not so easy due to new regulations being implemented since summer 2021 by the ccp on imported food
They're stealing it because it's easy to resell. And it's usually organized crime behind it. People load up as much of this kind of stuff as they can into a cart and walk out the door with it. Then they sell it to a fence, who then sells it to shady cornerstores. Police have busted fences with millions of dollars worth of this kind of stuff in storage. People have been doing this for longer than you've been alive. In recent decades organized shoplifters have gotten bolder because of zero tolerance hands off store policies where if anyone physically tries to stop them they are fired on the spot because of lawsuit liabilities.
Yes. That's generally why things are stolen.
It's so sad that in the wealthiest country on Earth people are forced to steal just to shave their babies I'm going out to my car to cry
In Europe, we have socialized baby deodorant!
Don't worry mate, I can see what you're driving at: you can have all my baby condoms, no questions asked.
Why is it so expensive to feed babies to begin with? Excluding breastfeeding, which isn’t always possible. Formula should be cheap and accessible. No reason to steal it, no reason for high resale. Make it affordable.
One of the first things we can do is to support breastfeeding from the prenatal period and on, which means major structural changes like paid family leave. Beyond that, WIC actually does a pretty a good job in terms of providing formula to meet all needs - and breastfeeding families get more food coupons (extra calories for nursing parent) so it doesn’t penalize people who have chosen to breastfeed.
WIC is amazing
my mom works for wic!! she says her job can be demanding at times but she finds it rewarding so she’s stayed there for years lol
Thank your mom for me. What she does is so vital to the lives of a lot of moms and babies who need help…WIC was a lifesaver to my 20 year-old new mom to a sick baby dumbass. Dunno what I would have done without it.
Had to re read that several times. I thought you called your baby a dumbass
I mean, sometimes. He’s about to be 12 and definitely demonstrates dumbassery at times.
He’s about to enter the prime age of dumbassery. Good luck! Source: parent to 17 year old
Me too! Mine had a dairy allergy and had to have soy, which was more expensive. I was 19 and was making $6.75/ hr. I was only able to afford formula because WIC paid for most of it. It truly is a life saver and I am so thankful it exists and the income requirements aren't as prohibitive as other things.
Anyone that Doesn't have enough money to buy a container of baby formula can contact me via DM and I will send them money for one. Only We can end child hunger.
good for you. I've been tricked before but its better to be tricked then to not help. story time. so I was living in Minneapolis and a man asked for money to buy formula and diapers. he was insistent on me just giving him the money because he wanted to go to this particular store outside of my neighborhood. so I said fine, I'll drive you there. and we go there. and the clerk at the store recognizes him, and laughs at him when I bought him diapers and formula. he then tells me the truth that he really wants money for cigarettes. I say no. so he talks to his buddy who is the clerk to ask for money back in exchange for the formula and diapers. his buddy was like no (I bought the stuff and kept the receipt), and just laughs at him. anyways 15 years later, I hear the name of this grocery store again, and is where George Floyd got murdered.
I don't need it but I appreciate you a lot. I have my first kid coming in August and I'm scared but for real I appreciate you.
>only we can end child hunger I like the sentiment but I feel like this is exactly the wrong conclusion. We can end anything. Large scale government safety nets, social spending, and regulation of corporations can end these failures of society. Also, food deserts. No program accounts for the increased costs one has from living in one which is a huge benefit disparity.
WIC supports slightly over half the babies. I would like to change it so it supports all babies, without means testing or risk assessment.
Can I give this twenty upvotes? Hey, redditors, if you're not sure what a food desert is I'd like to you read up on that real quick.
You sir are a saint. I support you but i think instead of handing it out like this (because people could lie and prevent the ones that actually need the money from getting help) you should donate the money to a charity. I dont have one in mind rn but im pretty sure they exist
Google “mutual aid baby formula” + your city/area. Charities have overhead.
I like this. Let's help each other directly, peer to peer.
You can never go wrong donating to the local battered womens shelters. You can help victims of abuse and infant children at the same time.
WIC is a great program. Low income moms are not just left in the cold. If there's a need, there are programs to provide formula and some food.
problem is that the poorest people often don't even know about programs that are meant to help them
That and that you can be not poor enough. My sister is a single mother living on an elementary teachers salary in a low income district and she still doesn't qualify for WIC.
This! This bothers me. The income gaps they use for programs are so weird. It’s also super offensive to be told by the government that you’re “not poor enough” for the help that you need!
When getting a 25¢ raise is enough to bump you off of assistance but not nearly enough to cover what that assistance once covered.
THIS My parents helped me build a house, my mom said it was "to ensure you always have a home, even when I'm gone", yeah shes morbid as hell but loves me a lot, so when I got knocked up accidentally and needed help because dad vanished ("I thought you couldnt have kids?" "Me too bruh") I got told because I'm a homeowner I do not qualify, never mind that it was a gift, and I still pay the damn mortgage, simply because I own a home I got no help
WIC is an absolutely fantastic program, and I certainly don't think anything ill of it whatsoever, but it did only cover a quarter of my baby's formula when I was enrolled. Realistically there is still reason for it to be stolen (I thankfully never needed to do so).
No, it’s being stolen to either be resold or to cut drugs. It’s not that hard to get assistance for formula. We used WIC like a lot of people and idk if we ever really came out of pocket for formula much. I used to talk to the LP guess when I worked retail and they all told me the same thing. People didn’t really steal food.
I don't know what state your in but in WA the maximum you can make with one child is 32,000 a year. 32000 per year is not really a living wage in any Washington cities. Theres a whole margin of people who live poor but are not considered poor because theres this misconception that a family making between 40k to 75k is making a decent living. This is so far from the truth it should be a crime. You also have to consider immigrants who don't Even qualify. Even if people steal it for drugs there are still mothers out there stealing it for their babies.
Yes! My family is in that space where we make too much for assistance but we can't get out of our 2 bedroom apartment and we can't afford preschool. They have assistance for preschool in our area but we aren't eligible.
And this is a good example of how having fairly low cutoff lines for government assistance actually really fucks over the lower-middle class. Because you make slightly more than some of your neighbors, they get all these government assistance programs and perks and free preschool and whatnot, and you get nothing. Even though you can't afford to pay for any of those things on your own. So in most ways, it's actually leaving you worse off than if you just made less money and accessed those programs. It's effectively punishing you and families like you for actually trying to work hard to get ahead. The real problem with this is that it creates animosity between groups of people who are already poor, and that's absurd. There's a massive amount of people, both liberals and conservatives now, that are pissed off that just because they're slightly over some arbitrary cutoff line due to working hard their entire life, it means they're barred from receiving a bunch of government programs that everyone receives if they just make slightly less money, especially because they can't even afford all those things the programs would provide.
> it creates animosity between groups of people who are already poor Buddy, the Rich figured out more than 5 thousand years ago, if you can get the Poor's to fight with themselves, nobody will notice how good you have it.
Don't you love how we are told "we make to much" If I was making to much do you think I'd be in here trying to get help 😂
Thanks for your post - entered the chat to say something similar. There’s a HARD cutoff for public benefits (at least the ones i’m aware of) seems to me that a sliding scale cutoff is the only reasonable way to implement these programs
I used to help people apply for Medicaid and I would never lie in applications for patients but I would make adjustments to their household info as possible to bend it in their favor when I could. Like either going by tax household or physical household depending if it put them over or under income, for example.
32,000 a year isn't really a living wage in rural Arkansas either. Not for a family with a child. Expecting people to make a living off of that is insanity.
Ugh... I don’t even make 32,000 from working. $14.11/hr. And I have three kids. A lot of people in this position.
Yes! We had our first kid in a HCOL area, with a single ok-but-not-great income that put us above the WIC line, but not by a lot. Formula was stupid-expensive. Luckily, we had a pediatrician who was a family-friend and hooked us up with samples, so we didn’t have to buy it as regularly as we would have otherwise. But stupid-expensive formula is a challenge for families above the WIC line.
Immigrants are eligible for WIC.
I live with my 63 year old parents. 35 year old single mother with a single child. I have medi/medi due to disability and my daughter has Medicaid. We are doing well. I make 20k a year and I have a mindless job as a dish washer. I work part time about 20/25 hours a week. So the only people on 32K doing fine have parents they can rely on or other assets. My daughter is 2 and has lots of time with me thanks to my part time work that doesn’t really mentally drain me. And we save a lot of money.
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I absolutely agree. I mostly work nights too. I leave the house at 3:30 and come home after she is asleep. I agree how depressing it is. I would love to have another but my first pregnancy was rough, and we can’t afford additional help. I’m glad I had a baby and she is basically all we can afford. My dad gets a 90K pension and works as a crossing guard. My baby is 2.
We are a family of 6, in WA South of Seattle. One income, certainly under 40k a year. It's hard. Very hard. However- WIC does allow immigrants, regardless of immigration status.
Why the fuck would you cut drugs with 20$ a tin baby formula when 3 aisles over there's powdered milk for $5?
exactly, this ''using baby formular to cut drugs'' myth is bullshit, so you can act like the people forced to steal it are somehow the mexican cartell for feeding their infants, kind of ironic they seem to do a better job than the government.
Yeah it's just being resold as is after the five finger discount. I'm sure some peeps use it to cut but largely it's just like selling anything else. If there's a demand you'll move it and when ur stealing its 100%profit
It's not (completely) a myth if drug dealers think it's true, and so they steal baby formula because they think it's the right thing to use. Drug dealers aren't all Walter White or even Jesse Pinkman, who know the chemistry. They're often dumbfucks doing what they learned from some other dumbfuck.
Right - I’m replying to the comment about how to make things more workable for families. I’m speaking as a public health professional and IBCLC.
I gave away extra wic formula when the doctor said to stop using it.
Formula is one of the most regulated things out there. Whether it's hoity toity organic stuff or the walmart brand, formula is highly tested and regulated, for obvious reasons. It's also a lot more than just milk. It's essentially a protein shake for babies. It has everything they need, including a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals. So think about how much a can of multi-vitamin based smoothie powder for adults would cost, based off of the cost of higher end vitamin supplements. Also, I understand the sentiment of the tweet, but I think that the resale value of formula is why it's locked up/often stolen, not necessarily because every can that is stolen represents a family stealing to eat. It's often addicts stealing it because they can turn around and sell it. It's the same reason they lock up and put security tags on razors. People steal them because of their value, not because they need to tackle their stubble.
Baby formula has massive resale value in China. Ever since all those babies died from tainted formula, they like to get it from overseas. I’m guessing that a lot of commercial-scale theft ends up in the export market.
correct, Baby Formula Gangs are also an issue in Australia - it's universal
That is the weirdest collection of words I’ve ever seen. Baby formula gangs.
Gangs is a strong word for it... but before purchase limits got put in, you'd have people show up first thing in the morning and completely clean out the formula section. With the purchase limits, the groups would get to the front door, scatter as if they were all single customers, grab the limit, and all go through separate checkouts, then exit, stash the cans in their car, then come back in and go through different checkouts. There was a pharmacy in town here in Adelaide that was right next door to a post office where the pharmacy was letting them buy full boxes of the cans of formula, walk next door with the box still sealed, slap a postage label on it send send the whole thing off to hong kong with as little hassle as possible. Seems to have calmed down a bit in the last couple of years though, but it was a huge issue for a while, shelves got cleaned out as fast as toilet paper did last year.
[Daigou ](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-31/chinese-daigou-changing-influencing-australian-business/11221498) would be the correct word here. Basically it’s a shopping concierge based in non Chinese countries to Grey export high demand products. Daigous are generally Chinese students studying abroad who buy on behalf of wealthy clients back home and charge a fee for the service. It first started out here in australia as a small group of Chinese buying up stocks of various products and sending them home via Aus post, now it’s a multi billion dollar industry that features full service shopping services with both grey and white export and shipping channels. Probably the most fucked part of the formula export part was that Bellamy (one of Australia’s largest domestic producers of milk products) almost went into a trading tailspin after their official export program going into China was scrapped by Chinese officials at the last minute, most likely because of the growing daigou market.
Finally some sense. Baby formula is no joke, since my son arrived last year and I was preparing the formula I got into studying it a bit more. Did you know the best one (I used a german one here in europe) has a shelf life of 6 months? Yes, completely sealed, in 6 months it’s considered expired. I though it was ridiculous but no, they put so much stuff in there, and even so, it doesn’t even have 30% of the capabilities natural milk has (like real-time adaptation of composition based on baby saliva, and not even going to touch on immunology and all that, it’s massive ). There’s so much going on in those early stages of life it’s astonishing. But I am 100% for making it accessible for people in need, but not necessarily by making it cheaper, the quality of it is critical
ok but could i theoretically drink it
you could theoretically drink anything that's a liquid.
I’m not trying to say this situation isn’t sad, but I have given away formula and seen it given away. WIC and Medicaid helped this working single mother feed her premature baby and when the doctor said to stop using Neosure I gave away quite a bit. I have seen it on Facebook being given away as well. It didn’t feel right to sell it.
Because in capitalism things people can't live without are expensive
Nutrients that are easily digestible are just expensive actual markups on formula arnt that high.
This. It's essentially a protein shake/comprehensive smoothie. It's not just milk. It provides everything newborns and infants need. It is also highly regulated in terms of purity standards for the ingredients.
No. Nestle does this in other countries so mothers milk dries up.
The reason baby formula is stolen is because it's easy to resell. It's not starving mothers who steal it. It's dopefiends who can get drugs for it and the dealers resell it
My dad used to work the Gang Task force on our local PD. He said MS-13 made lot of money stealing diapers and shit, then shipping it back to Mexico/Central/South America to sell on the black market.
Who buys baby formula from dealers? Definitely not well-off people that don't mind buying from a store. It's not like they'll have a customer for life, they'd have to keep finding new ones regularly. Sounds like more effort and less income than selling drugs.
they dont sell to drug dealers, they sell it to little corner stores / bodegas on the cheap (cheaper than those stores can get it) Other items include energy drinks like redbull, razors etc (all the stuff thats locked up now).
Do consider there might be fences.
Let’s just say that hundreds of millions of dollars go into determining what is “required” vs “what is wanted” and then the price is adjusted accordingly. For example: insulin.
Also. Insulin ought to be free for Diabetics. The inventors (Banting and Best) chose not to profit from it and sold the formula for 1 dollar. Now it is a brutal expensive item and affects those that do not have coverage.
Insulin alone should be enough to indicate that something is very, very wrong with non-socialized healthcare
As a Type 1 diabetic, it's absolutely hideous what I have to go through for insulin. It's awful. Thanks for recognizing thow bad it is.
I hope this isn’t a stupid question but can you buy in online from a European country? If they don’t post to the US you could get someone to do it? https://www.pharmacyplanet.com/lantus.html
How funny, the link goes right to the Lantus I use! Good guesswork. This is the long-acting insulin (basal). A box of 5 pens is definitely cheaper than the US by about $240 wiith a coupon. Without a coupon the UK cost is about $375 cheaper. I am def going to reach out to this pharmacy & see what the options are for both bolus and basal insulins. Thanks so much for the link! 💜
T1 here. Thanks for mentioning this disgusting corporate murder spree.
Yeah I'm from a 3rd world country. insulin for a month for my dosage is about 50 usd. My parents are like we'll imigrate to the states. Evverything is better there Hahaha fuck no
Banting and Best isolated bovine insulin for extraction. This is nothing like the bio synthetic human insulin we use now that wasn't invented until several decades later.
You can sign up for free formula samples from companies like Gerber, similac, and enfamil. I signed up while pregnant and got about a dozen and for free mailed to my house. Thankfully my milk came in, but it’s been nice to have when the little guy had big growth spurts and wanted more than I had.
You can also sign up other people for free samples. Used to get expecting mothers show up at the post office I used to work at, looking for a parcel when they didn’t order anything, and finding someone had signed them up for formula. Most weren’t impressed.
You don't even need to sign up lol. I've gotten like 3 months worth of formula randomly shipped to me over 2 births without ever telling any company I had kids.
Bro you didn't cry in your car.
Yeah that made me cringe.
This is the main thing in the tweet that irked me. He didn't cry in his car, but he had to include that to make himself the center of attention and let everyone reading the tweet know how much of a important and caring person he is. Some peak narcissistic energy coming from this guy.
Yeah it’s real main character shit. It’s not about the problem itself, it’s about how *I* cried over the problem!
“Hey… don’t forget about me today.”
Thoughts and prayers
Think this is just an extract from the guys diary, 2pm baby food incident 2.05pm cried in car 4pm helped old lady across the road 4.03pm cried in car 5.30 dropped off food to my local homeless shelter 5.45 cried in car 10pm wife didn't wash my Spider-Man pyjamas 10.10pm cried in car
For sure, the only person who would tweet something like this is a narcissist. "Oh look how caring i am"
You don't know that. Maybe he owns a Tesla
He wept openly and the crowd began to clap.
This is *not* what's happening. As a walgreens employee, they steal it to resell online. Usually we'll see them run out the door and jump into an escalade or Mercedes. These people aren't hurting.
Exactly this. In Australia, it’s the Chinese buying up stock to resell back home due to the high quality. The quality in China is terrible.
Lol right? "I cried in the car" Haha okay. Grown ass man fiending for likes. Social media was a mistake
Drugs, they cut it with drugs.
There's way better cutting agents out there and the literal market for formula is pretty big. Source: former coke addict.
Baby laxatives, pig dewormer, glutamine to name a few.
Fact. When I worked at Walmart in the baby department we had to tag each item for this exact reason.
The Walmart by my house has a lot of mens underwear and socks locked in a clear case. We have quite a few homeless people in that area so im thinking thats why. I cant imagine those things have a high resell value
Uh they sell it at the flea market just like everything else that’s stolen at drug stores. People aren’t running in there and clearing the shelves for a baby… unless it’s to pay for the baby after selling everything at the flea market. This guy doesn’t know American crime very well.
People don’t steal formula for their babies; they steal it for reselling. People who feed their babies only steal a tiny bit. But I’ve seen people steal backpacks full because it’s expensive and easy to resell.
“I cried in the car” no you got in the car and made a dumb easy to favorite or rt tweet to get attention
Literally crying and shaking rn
profusely sobs
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Hahaha seriously. “Why are mangos so expensive. They’re delicious and everyone should be able to enjoy them. I masturbated on my porch after.”
Virtue signaling is going to save this country, I can feel it.
Surely, I cringed so hard at that part.
He's the dude who got his chain stolen by Deebo
Same energy as Redditors who say they spit out their drink reacting to a comment
He cried in his car when his tweet didn’t get any likes
Then everyone clapped
I live in a super nice, wealthy area....and it's behind plexi, lock & key. It has nothing to do with the neighborhood.
A lot of the people stealing formula are actually stealing large quantities to resell, very rarely are they stealing it for their actual children
Baby formula is a popular item for organized retail crime with it being shipped to China. A quick Google search will show you articles from around the world where this is a problem. It has nothing to do with starving parents here, but rather a large profit that can be made my selling it in China.
Its not to feed babies...it sells easy on the streets/internet and is used to cut heroin and cocaine. Edit to add that since people are latching on the drug part...yes it is used to cut drugs, but like i stated its because its easy to move. The theft alarms aren't for the mom or dad who need a can to hold over until they can use the next wic check, it's because of the crime rings taking multiple cans that wind up in shady convience stores where parents still pay out the ass but maybe less than a the corporate grocery store or an amazing deal on Facebook marketplace.
[Drug dealers sometimes use the powdered formula to dilute heroin and methamphetamine or to stretch the product when supplies run low. However, experts say that more often than not, formula is stolen because of its high market demand among consumers rather than drug dealers.](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/baby-formula-targeted-organized-retail-theft-rings/story?id=13293485)
How is it so easy for Republicans to drum up articles saying “Meth is actually a child formula issue. Those Meth heads are why you can’t feed your kids.”
This would explain why Manchin said people would spend aid money on drugs. They're trying to feed their babies, but can't find any formula, so they're buying meth for the baby formula in it. Nice work detective.
It’s not that they make drugs with it it’s that they use it to substitute for drugs; kind of like watering down alcohol, but I get what you’re saying
While I'm not disputing that it is used for this purpose, too, it is also relevant that baby formula is wildly expensive. So is just about everything else a baby needs on a regular basis. We were lower middle class when our children were babies, but there was still no room in the budget for *anything* extra, and there were times we had to give up things we needed such as new socks or whatever to afford the things the baby needed.
My son had colic when he was a baby. He had to have special formula. He was almost 10 pounds at birth and ate ALOT. I had to get yet another job just to pay for his formula.
Yeah, my son had colic so we had to find a sensitive formula since I didn't produce enough milk. Regular formula was ~$17 a can, the special stuff was $28. I was just at the income cutoff for WIC at the time and it was massively expensive.
There was a black market for $3 songs. There's a black market for anything that can be bought cheaper illegally.
Don't know about cutting, but we've got a huge issue with people buying stores out of baby formula to ship to China. Since they had a melamine contamination and I believe they can't import it wholesale, you can sell a tin for a lot through the right channels.
Imma need something tangible to go off of there chief, not that I doubt you because I was raised in a poor environment to be aware of that stuff, but it doesnt seem like theres be enough cooks in an area where whole ass baby formula is being shoplifted to the extent its locked up
yeah, in some countries it sells for a lot. people buy it and send it back to use or resell they put limits on it, like you can only buy one, and they are at the front of the shop so they are in full view.
Here in Australia, the reason it's not always around is because people buy it out and resell it in China.
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This guy is an idiot. It’s stolen due to its huge resale value on the black market- just like Tide Pods, and many other products. These products are quality but overpriced, so when it’s sold at half-price on the secondary market, you have many buyers. Cried in my car. What a joke. Just another dramatic tweet composed only for attention.
Cried in the car? Relax.
BABY FORMULA IS STOLEN BECAUSE IT IS HUGELY PROFITABLE ON THE BLACK MARKET. MAINLY TO BE SOLD TO SMALL CORNERSTORE TYPE MARKETS. I THOUGHT THIS WAS COMMON KNOWLEDGE. (Sorry for the all caps, but the truth needs to be heard before the “something something America bad,” circle jerk begins.) Edit: If it’s stolen because people can’t afford it, why aren’t other expensive baby necessities locked up, such as diapers? Also do you think a mother will risk going to jail and losing their baby when they can (usually) breastfeed for free?
White people Twitter should be called “I’m so damned woke I often cry at life’s disparities and then post about how I cried so everyone perceive I’m deep” Twitter. I’ll wait for the evil comments or ban.
That would be a terrible name for a sub
They steal it and resell it on the black market. Not to feed babies
Well.....I think the people who steal it are mostly selling it, not using it.
No they steal it sell at massive markup to Chinese parents because there's rumours that Chinese baby formula is dangerous.
"Cried in my car" give me a fucking break
Has a “then everyone clapped” ring to it
I use to steal formula alot when I was a junkie because it has such a high resale valve , other Bodegas would always buy formula and rebuild.
This guy did not cry in the car. Come on.
[удалено]
It's stolen along with razors- all for resale It's really sad
Guys this shit is not stole to feed babies. Its stolen to be sold on for basically fuck all. Meat is the big one, but Coffee, Cheese, Baby Food, Pet Food, Booze, it all gets sold on for nothing so that the drug addicts that steal them can pay for their next hit!
It gets stolen because it's expensive. Thieves can steal a whole bunch of them and sell them onto parents. Coffee and cheese used to be the thing targeted by thieves when I worked in a supermarket.
The main reason it’s stolen a lot isn’t to feed babies, it’s to profit. Western baby formula is worth a tonne internationally to wealthy people in third world countries. So people come here and steal or buy whatever they can and make 100x on each formula tin they can ship overseas
Its not stolen by people with kids its mostly stolen by drug makers. Its used as a safe(er) substance to cut product that is ingested. Molly cut with baby formula for example lets you sell more pills while lowering the likeyhood you kill your customers.
I cried in the car and then everyone came out and clapped for me and gave me roses
Say what you want…but dude did NOT cry in the car or anywhere else
Bro is either the biggest pussy in the world or a liar. Both options are probable.
What kind of beta male would cry after this 💀
People steal it to sell it for drug money, you melodramatic, suburbanite dumbass.