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Actions will help ensure that families who rely on the WIC program have safe and reliable infant formula options even in an emergency or supply chain disruption, including a recall

Contact: USDA Press Email: press@usda.gov

Since Abbott Nutrition’s voluntary infant formula recall to address health and safety concerns at its Sturgis, Michigan manufacturing plant, the Biden-Harris Administration has been working around the clock to ensure that safe and nutritious infant formula is available to every family that needs it. In light of the recent crisis and new authority provided through the bipartisan Access to Baby Formula Act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is announcing a series of additional steps it will take to strengthen resiliency in WIC, which covers the cost of infant formula for families with limited means. These actions will ensure that the families who rely on the WIC program have safe and reliable infant formula options even in an emergency. Currently 1.2 million infants receive WIC formula benefits, and more than half of infant formula is purchased by WIC participants.

This announcement builds on numerous actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to address infant formula supply chain disruptions:

These efforts have resulted in millions of additional bottle equivalents of infant formula being made available to American families. Cumulative sales of infant formula are up around 4 percent this year adjusting for projected increases in the number of births.

USDA continues to work closely with the Administration, HHS, and FDA to support families through this challenging time and to bring to a swift end to the infant formula shortage with a particular focus on the WIC program. USDA has:

Through these efforts, USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has worked to ensure WIC participants and stakeholders have the information they need to keep infants safe and to access formula. Following the Abbott plant closure, the agency immediately provided guidance to WIC state agencies and, within days, offered flexibilities including waivers to help them respond to the impacts of the recall. In the months since, FNS has been providing ongoing assistance and support to help states put those flexibilities to best use and adapt to the rapidly-changing situation, approving nearly 500 waivers.

Since 1989, Congress has required WIC state agencies to operate a cost containment system for infant formula, which states are meeting through a competitive bidding process for formula contracts. Contracts are awarded to the manufacturer offering the highest discount on wholesale prices. This 1989 reform has resulted in billions of annual savings for WIC and allowed the program to provide necessary benefits to serve every eligible infant, child and pregnant, postpartum or breastfeeding women.

This 1989 cost containment reform helped ensure that every WIC-eligible family could access nutritious foods and infant formula they needed, and helped to modestly reduce market-wide concentration. Two companies have dominated the infant formula market since the 1950s, and in 1987, three companies controlled 99 percent (PDF, 581 KB) of the market—a more concentrated market than today in which four companies control 90 percent of the market. While the current system has allowed the program to serve eligible families in a cost-effective way, today’s reforms are an important step towards building more resilience into the system, to protect the health and safety of American infants.

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