On Monday, the administration of President Joe Biden announced the launch of its 17th Operation Fly Formula mission, as marketing data indicates a worsening scarcity of infant formula.
Two aircraft have been scheduled by the administration to bring Nestlé Health Science amino acid-based formula to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on July 21 and 22.
The equivalent of 802,446 8-ounce bottles of infant formula will be delivered in this shipment; hospitals and home health care providers will receive the majority of it.
But, despite the rash of flights the administration has announced, U.S. stores are still struggling to stock baby formula on their shelves.
Formula availability dropped to its lowest level so far this year, with about 30% of products out of stock for the week ended July 3, according to the market-research firm IRI.
This results in a stock rate for that week of 70%, which is lower than the stock rate of 77% for the week before.
More than 125,000 retailers in the United States are tracked by IRI for product inventory. Prior to the February recall and Abbott Laboratories production closure, which caused the shortage, rates were roughly 90%.
In response to a query from DailyMail.com, the White House declined to comment.
Operation Fly Formula was started by President Biden “to expedite the import of infant formula and start getting additional formula into shops as quickly as feasible,” according to the White House.
The administration stated that by July 24, Operation Fly Formula will have delivered more than 61 million 8-ounce bottle equivalents to the United States.
However, that is far from being sufficient.
Every week, Americans typically purchase enough powdered formula to make 65 million 8-ounce bottles.
The most hit states include Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, and Colorado, with inventory levels below 60%.
Alaska has the largest shortage, with a 51 percent in-stock rate. New York, with an 81 percent supply, has the best scenario.
Parents are also finding fewer choices of brands, sizes or formats of formula on grocery-store shelves as the shortage continues.
U.S. supermarkets over the four weeks ended June 26 sold an average of 11 different formula products per store weekly, according to IRI data shared with the Wall Street Journal, compared with a weekly average of 24 from 2018 to 2021.
‘We are months — months — away from an end to these shortages,’ a source on a recent FDA call about the issue told Politico last week.
The scarcity began in February when Abbott Laboratories shut down its Sturgis, Michigan, facility and issued a recall while food safety authorities looked into a potentially fatal infection.
The factory, which previously produced around one-fifth of the nation’s infant formula, is a significant provider of speciality formulae essential to the survival of infants with specific requirements.
Early in June, it resumed operations, but was forced to halt them after a section of the complex was flooded by severe storms less than two weeks later.
It began operating again on July 1 and is now concentrating on making the specialized formula Elecare, which is designed for infants with digestive problems.
The administration was slow to respond to the shortage but then moved to ramp up production domestically and to bring in international brands to ease the shortage.
In May, the president invoked the Defense Production Act – forcing suppliers to prioritize directing resources to infant formula production above all other contracts.
Nearly 98% of baby formula is manufactured domestically. Four companies account for roughly 90% of the market: Abbott, Reckitt, Nestle and Perrigo.