Makers Of Walmart, Amazon Store-Brand Baby Formula See Year-Long Shortage

Perrigo Co. PLC, which makes store-brand baby formulas for retailers, including Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., expects shortages and heightened demand to last for the "balance of the year," Chief Executive Murray Kessler told Jessia DiNapoli of Reuters.

Photo Insert: The closure of Abbott's infant-formula plant in Sturgis, Michigan, exacerbated national pandemic-related shortages, leading to empty shelves in big box stores and supermarkets and panicked parents.

The Biden administration this week has come under increasing pressure to address a baby formula shortage, which has roots in a February recall of some formulas by one of the nation's main manufacturers, Abbott Laboratories.

"We have stepped up and are killing ourselves to do everything we can," Kessler said. Perrigo's formula manufacturing facilities in Ohio and Vermont are now running at 115% of capacity, Kessler said.

At the request of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Perrigo is focusing on four items, the store-brand versions of Similac Pro Sensitive and Pro Advance and Enfamil Gentle Ease and Infant, Kessler said.

The company added that it is making other formulas as well. It also has a smaller business making some national formula brands, including Bobbie.

The closure of Abbott's infant-formula plant in Sturgis, Michigan, exacerbated national pandemic-related shortages, leading to empty shelves in big box stores and supermarkets and panicked parents.

Abbott's brands include Similac formulas. Perrigo is working with retailers including Walmart and Target Corp. so they "get something each week," Kessler said. Retailers' allocations are based on an average of what the retailers received prior to "this crisis," he said.

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