Nursery World - Health & Wellbeing: How to support parents as formula milk soars in price

With parents struggling to buy infant formula resorting to unsafe practices, there are calls for benefits to be increased. By Annette Rawstrone

Desperate parents are stealing infant formula, watering it down or weaning their babies early in response to soaring prices, charities are warning.

Powdered first infant formulas increased in cost by an average of 24 per cent between March 2021 and April 2023, according to research by First Steps Nutrition Trust.

Susan Westland, senior nutritionist at First Steps Nutrition Trust, says, ‘Manufacturers have claimed that they are increasing the price of their formula milks as a response to increased costs to them in producing, storing and transporting their products and in the cost of raw materials.’ She adds that three factors call into question the justifiability of the price rises:

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