The left-field candidate for campaigner of the year that no one saw coming: Richard Walker. Two weeks ago, the Iceland boss committed to his chain slashing the price of formula baby milk in all their stores.

This was in response to a survey of 500 families which revealed that 90% were worried about feeding their babies. With food banks advised against taking or giving out formula as donations and cash equivalents, like food vouchers and loyalty points, exempt from buying formula it's hardly any wonder. Indeed, along with the Metro newspaper, the charity Feed has started a petition to allow families to spend store points and gift cards on infant formula stating that parents were "often forced into unsafe infant feeding practices that put their babies’ health at risk, formula foraging, or even formula theft in order to access this vital food for their little ones".

That's it by the way, that's the activism: the boss of Iceland has reduced the cost of baby formula and now he faces a potential "unlimited fine". It's actually not illegal for him to reduce the price but it is against the law for him to tell customers about it. Which, of course, means that many families struggling financially would have no idea they can access something so essential so much more affordably.

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Formula feeding and breastfeeding are enormously emotional and contentious subjects. The regulations against advertising formula for infants under the age of six months to ensure that concerned mothers wouldn't be somehow tricked into believing that formula feeding was superior to breastfeeding was undoubtedly introduced with good intentions. However, the reality is, as ever, much more complicated than this.

First of all, it should be noted that mothers to be are not impressionable, hormone-addled idiots, easily swayed by a fancy advert. In the same way I can decide whether or not I’m going to eat three jumbo slabs of chocolate, drink a bottle of Jack Daniels or try crack today, I’m capable of making an intelligent, informed decision about how best to feed my child.

Add to this that the "breast is best" ethos has created a huge amount of stigma and shame around formula feeding. I bottle-fed my son and I did so without an ounce of guilt. I was an older mum, just turned 40 when I gave birth, and my milk simply never came in. But one of the benefits of being "the last mum" in my friendship group was that I'd seen my friends go before me and face the breast or bottle dilemma. I watched one mum apologise to whatever company she was in every time she took her bottle out of her nappy bag, and go into a long monologue about how hard she had tried to breastfeed. But for her second child she was much more relaxed, having already raised a beautiful, boisterous clever formula-fed toddler.

When it was my turn, I had already heard too many of my friends weeping over the fact that they couldn't breastfeed, telling me that their nipples were split open and they were still trying to feed as their tears rained down on their newborn's face. This sounds extreme but if you've ever been a parent, you will no doubt recognise that primal instinct to do whatever you can to make sure that your child is happy and healthy.

When I gave birth, I met another young mum in the breastfeeding room as we were both strapped up to industrial breast pumps to stimulate our milk, like dairy farm heifers. She looked at me and said with no humour, "We are the s**t mothers". She was at least 10 years younger than me and I tried to reassure her, but I could see that she already felt she had failed, just days into her baby's life.

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I believe in every sense in a woman's right to choose, indeed, a family's right to choose. The current ban is so extreme that it’s harmful to new parents. Surely, it’s better to talk openly about formula feeding instead of pretending it’s a dirty societal secret? Especially because in the UK most women do not breastfeed babies for very long. British Pregnancy Advisory Services claim that while 80% of babies were exclusively breastfed at birth, by three months that figure drops to less than 20%.

We can’t allow the current lack of transparency to conceal the fact that the price of formula has skyrocketed in recent years beyond many families' means. Formula is being fed to our babies and therefore we need to be able to access it in a safe, affordable, non-judgmental way.

What was the consequence of bottle-feeding my boy? As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing. He is strapping, robust and smart enough to already run rings around us. Perhaps one difference was I got to enjoy those early days of motherhood. My husband and I both shared those precious bonding moments of feeding our child in the hush of the night while contemplating new parenthood. And, despite a history of mental health problems, I did not suffer from postpartum depression as I feared I would. I treasured every single day with my new child and part of that was because I bottle-fed without guilt, or worry about how I would afford to do so.

Ultimately, if we believe that women and families are informed and intelligent enough to have a child, we should certainly believe that they're informed and intelligent enough to choose what is best for them and their family.

So I’m raising a glass of the white stuff and toasting Richard Walker, the boss of Iceland, who while he might have one eye on the bottom line, ultimately, does appear to be fighting the good fight.