Empty shelves show a shortage of baby formula at a Target store in San Antonio, Texas, May 10, 2022.
Kaylee Greenlee Beal | Reuters
FedEx Express has secured a government contract to bring another shipment of infant formula to the U.S. on Wednesday, NBC News reported.
The Express plane will fly Nestlé baby formula from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. From there, the formula will be transported to a Nestlé facility in Pennsylvania. It’s unclear how much formula the plane will carry.
The move is meant to address a critical shortage of baby formula in the United States after top formula maker Abbott Laboratories closed a manufacturing plant following reports of bacterial infections in four infants.
Abbott said it would take about two weeks to reopen the plant and up to eight weeks for products to hit the shelves nationwide. That’s left a wide gap for scores of parents across the nation.
In an effort to ease the burden, the Food and Drug Administration is increasing baby formula imports from other countries. Dubbed “Operation Fly Formula,” the first shipment, carrying 78,000 pounds of specialty infant formula, arrived Sunday.
President Joe Biden has also invoked the Defense Production Act to increase baby formula manufacturing. His administration is seeking to stock shelves with 1.5 million containers of Nestle specialty infant formula.
