First shipment of baby formula from Europe lands in Indianapolis

The first shipments of baby formula will leave Europe for the U.S.

A military cargo plane carrying the first shipment of infant formula from Europe to address a critical shortage in the United States landed in Indianapolis on Sunday.

A Feb. 17 recall by top baby formula maker Abbott Laboratories and the closing of its manufacturing plant in Sturgis, Michigan has resulted in one of the biggest infant formula shortages in recent history for U.S. families.

President Joe Biden's administration is trying to stock empty shelves with 1.5 million containers of Nestle specialty infant formulas. Biden invoked the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to increase supplies.

The White House said that the Sunday plane carried 78,000 pounds 35,380 kg of specialty infant formula.

There is about enough formula on that plane, specialty medical grade formula, for about a half million bottles. That's about 15% of the total national volume this coming week, according to Brian Deese, White House National Economic Council director.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was there to greet the plane.

Abbott, the biggest U.S. supplier of powder infant formula, closed its Michigan plant after reports of bacterial infections in four infants, worsening a shortage among several manufacturers that began with pandemic supply-chain issues.

Abbott Chief Executive Robert Ford apologized for the formula shortage on Sunday and promised to fix it, adding that the plant would be reopened in the first week of June, and it would take six to eight weeks for products to reach store shelves.

Ford wrote in an opinion column published in the Washington Post that we are sorry for every family we've let down since our voluntary recall exacerbated our nation's baby formula shortage.

Ford said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigation did not find any links between the formula production area of the Michigan facility and four cases of sick children, but it did find evidence of the presence of bacteria.