ATLANTA — There's new relief coming for bottle-feeding mothers in Georgia. Thursday afternoon, the federally-funded Georgia Women, Infants, and Children Supplemental Nutritional Program (WIC) announced more than 50 additional infant formulas now covered and available to families in need.
This is in response to the nationwide shortage of baby formula. As of the week ending May 28, Georgia was the hardest-hit state, with the largest shortage compared to other states nationwide.
North Carolina State supply chain management professor Rob Handfield said it's because mothers in the Peach State rely heavily on subsidies provided by WIC.
“Georgia has a very high reliance on this, like almost 50%," he said. "The only states that have higher are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. The other thing is each state is designated a single manufacturer. So Georgia is designated Enfamil, which has a very small market share.”
A map put together by Bloomberg shows that, as of the week ending May 28, Georgia had an out-of-stock rate of 94.4%, while the national average at the time was 74%.
Just one week before, on the week ending May 21, Georgia's out-of-stock rate was at 74%, according to analytics company Datasembly.
“When people started hearing about it, people start hoarding, and that's why the numbers are going up so much," Handfield added.
On the week ending May 28, 10 states had out-of-stock rates of more than 90%, with Georgia at the highest percentage.
To help with that, WIC announced it's expansion of store-brand baby formulas that participants can buy amid the shortage.
In addition to Enfamil, that list now includes brands Parent’s Choice, Up and Up, Comforts and Always My Baby.
“The shortages are resulting in price increases, they might go up by 20 to 30% more. I think it's hurt some of those low-income families that are really reliant on baby formula more than others," Handfield added.
Georgia WIC has also made an update to its system to decrease the number of containers typically issued per voucher to assist participants in obtaining formula.
Handfield adds that during the pandemic, a lot of working mothers did not have access to the training needed early on when babies start learning how to breastfeed, driving a lot of these mothers to require baby formula.
To top it off, there is also a shortage of a lot of the raw materials needed for baby formula, including sunflower oil.
"A lot of sunflower oil comes from Ukraine, which, obviously, they're not producing and not exporting it as quickly. So, the cost of some of that sunflower oil is going up," he added.