A supermarket in New York, USA, displays Enfimir infant formula produced by Mead Johnson Nutritional Products Company
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg News | Getty Images
sales volume Li Jie TeThe British consumer products company said on Wednesday its Mead Johnson infant formula could take a short-term hit after a tornado damaged a third-party warehouse in the United States.
Reckitt Benckiser said its Mount Vernon warehouse in Indiana, which is an important base for the company’s Mead Johnson nutritional products business and stores raw materials and finished products, has been out of service since a tornado hit on July 9.
The company added that all employees were safe and said it had moved the shipment to other warehouses in the United States.
A spokesman for Reckitt Benckiser said some nutritional product categories may be affected in the short term.
The company could not estimate when warehouses would resume operations but said it was working as quickly as possible with local authorities and regulators to minimize disruption.
“We are working with customers and suppliers to accelerate recovery efforts to minimize disruption by leveraging our global supply chain and managing inventory at our other U.S. warehouses,” the spokesperson said.
This is not the first time Reckitt Benckiser has had to rely on its global supply chain during an emergency, which may take some time as the company needs to clear regulatory hurdles with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In 2022, during a months-long shortage of infant formula in the United States, Reckitt Benckiser flew 65 tons of infant formula from its factory in Singapore to Chicago. Months ago, the company said it was working with the FDA to increase infant formula supplies, including expediting approval of some products made at a plant in Mexico.
Reckitt Benckiser said on Wednesday it has comprehensive property damage and business interruption insurance, which it expects to largely offset the impact on earnings.
This is the company’s third setback this year.
An investigation in February revealed that some employees had underreported liabilities in the Middle East, triggering Reckitt Benckiser’s biggest one-day drop since December 1999.
A month later, an Illinois jury ordered Reckitt Benckiser’s Mead Johnson unit to pay $60 million to the mother of a premature baby who died after allegedly consuming the company’s Enfamil Premature 24 infant formula product. Disease, the stock plummeted again.
Reckitt Benckiser shares fell 0.5% on Wednesday morning and are down about 21% year to date.
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