Dive Brief:
- Major food and beverage companies are lagging behind on efforts to prevent and address forced labor risks aggravated by climate change across their supply chains, according to a recent assessment backed by international nonprofit Business and Human Rights Centre.
- Then benchmark evaluated 45 of the largest food and beverage companies across the globe and gave them an average score of just 15 out of 100 for efforts to prevent and address forced labor, a decline since the last assessment 3 years ago.
- Nearly half of the companies scored below 10 out of 100, and only two — Australian supermarkets Coles and Woolworths — scored above 50. Unilever, Tesco and The Hershey Company trailed behind in rankings with scores in the 40s. All other companies assessed for the benchmark — including Smucker’s, Mondelēz International and Nestlé — scored less than 40.
Dive Insight:
Nearly 1.3 billion people work in agrifood systems globally, and the food and beverage industry remains the largest worldwide, according to the United Nations. In 2024, the International Labour Organization calculated illicit global profits from forced labor of $236 billion, up $64 billion over a decade, with the world’s agricultural works generating about $5 billion.
The latest benchmark was published earlier this month by KnowTheChain, a project of the Business and Human Rights Centre which provides resources to help companies and investors identify and address forced labor risks within their global supply chains.
Coles, Hershey, Tesco, Unilever, Woolworths and Smucker’s scored the highest on this year’s benchmark, similar to their rankings on the 2023 assessment. Seven companies, including Tesco, Smucker’s, Nestlé and Walmart, saw score drops of 10% or more since 2023. Supermarkets performed the best, with an average score of 24 out of 100, while packaged foods and meats performed the worst, with an average score of 12 out of 100.
Companies headquartered in jurisdictions with import bans and mandatory due diligence and disclosure requirements on forced labor scored higher than those that were not. The two Australian companies scored 56 on average, while Europe-based companies scored 19 on average and U.S. companies scored 15 on average. Meanwhile, companies based in Asia scored 7 on average, and companies in Latin America scored 4 on average.
Food and beverage companies scored the highest on the theme of “Commitment and Governance,” and 91% of companies said they have a supplier code of conduct prohibiting forced labor. However, only 40% of companies disclosed board oversight of forced labor policies, and they scored extremely poorly on the practices that matter most on the ground: companies scored an average of 3 out of 100 in responsible purchasing practices, 5 out of 100 in access to remediation, 6 out of 100 in freedom of association, and 7 out of 100 in monitoring conditions for supply chain workers. Just one-in-five companies disclosed engaging directly with rightsholders or their legitimate representatives in forced labor efforts. Additionally, only 7% of companies disclosed training in forced labor policies for lower-tier suppliers.
Tracing and transparency scores were also weak, with only 11% of companies disclosing even partial first-tier supplier lists, and only 24% of companies disclosed information related to sourcing at least one of 18 high-risk commodities below the first tier.
The disconnect between commitments and practices shows that “paper promises to tackle forced labour are now wholly inadequate,” Business and Human Rights Centre’s Senior Labor Rights Researcher Isobel Archer said in a press release. “Governments are introducing laws that require companies to prevent and remedy forced labour in their supply chains, not just make commitments. Our findings show many food and beverage companies simply are not prepared for that level of scrutiny.”
