Iran Outsourcing Infant Formula Production To Turkish Company

The Iranian government has outsourced the production of infant formula to a company based in Turkey amid a domestic crisis.

Hani Tahvilzadeh, the head of the Association of Infant Formula and Baby Food Producers, said that the decision was made by Ebrahim Raisi's administration, although he did not disclose the name or provide further details about the Turkish company involved.

The crisis began over a decade ago, and Tahvilzadeh emphasized the dramatic decline in the production capacity dropping from ten million units per month to just five million, as a consequence of the government's not giving local producers access to foreign currency nor the materials needed for domestic production needs.

Tahvilzadeh highlighted that the policy has led to the suspension of production in domestic companies. The IRGC-run Fars News agency showed the huge price rises in formula since last year alone. Nan infant formula, which was 43,000 tomans last year, now costs 80,000 tomans. Bebilac 1 has increased from 40,000 to 72,000 tomans, and Hipp Organic has risen sharply from 229,000 tomans to 450,000 tomans.

The situation unfolds as the scarcity of infant formula in Iran coincides with government officials from the Islamic Republic encouraging Iranian families to have more children. In addition to the infant formula crisis, recent years have also witnessed a severe shortage of diapers in the country.

The root cause of this predicament lies in the Central Bank's failure to allocate the required foreign currency to domestic producers. Consequently, Iranian citizens are now provided with coupons to obtain baby formula, and they are witnessing this dire situation with their children's well-being at risk. As of October 12, it has become mandatory to present a national ID and the baby's birthdate to pharmacies in order to obtain infant formula.