Dive Brief:
- Nestlé has partnered with the International Labour Organization — a United Nations agency focused on advancing social justice, human rights and fair work standards — to launch a project that promotes fair recruitment and labor rights in coffee supply chains based in Latin America.
- The two-year project will focus on three main coffee sourcing countries: Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, according to a Tuesday press release.
- The project aims to carry out interventions targeted at the country level to improve labor rights and work practices in these coffee supply chains, Nestlé said in the release. The company said insights from these interventions will also supplement knowledge-sharing across the global coffee sector.
Dive Insight:
As part of the project, ILO said it seeks to play the role of a facilitator, where it will focus on initiating social dialogue between governments and employers’ and workers’ organizations to understand the “key drivers” of labor-related risks and fair work standards deficits in coffee supply chains. Nestlé said it will then use these insights to carry out the country-level interventions.
The UN agency is hoping to use the program to “promote decent work and contribute to more sustainable supply chains,” in addition to advancing labor rights, Director of ILO’s Priority Action Programme on Decent Work in Supply Chains Dan Rees said in the March 31 release.
“Coffee production sustains the livelihoods of approximately 20–25 million families worldwide, generating vital income and employment,” Rees added. “However, decent work deficits in coffee supply chains persist, particularly among seasonal and migrant workers.”
Nestlé said the project is backed by the “Nescafé Plan 2030,” the instant coffee brand’s global sustainability program. The Swiss food and beverage giant updated the program in 2022 to help farmers transition to sustainable practices that improved productivity, cut spending and reduced greenhouse gas emissions linked to coffee production.
Nestlé reported that Nescafé sourced 32% of its coffee from farmers that implemented regenerative agriculture practices in 2024, surpassing a 2025 goal of sourcing 20% of coffee from such methods.
The Nescafé Plan also focuses on improving the livelihoods of the sourcing farmers and the communities they live in and includes social initiatives like human rights and child protection. The latter services include monitoring and bettering children and workers’ rights across Nescafé’s supply chains, according to the coffee brand.
A recent benchmark evaluating 45 of the largest food and beverage companies across the globe — including Nestlé — found that most major food and beverage companies are lagging on efforts to prevent and address forced labor risks aggravated by climate change across their supply chains. The benchmark, published by international nonprofit Business and Human Rights Centre that evaluated, scored companies out of 100 on their efforts to prevent and address forced labor. However, only two — Australian supermarkets Coles and Woolworths — scored above 50, while Nestlé scored less than 40, alongside Smucker’s, Mondelēz International, and the majority of others.
