Food Magazine - The Food Commission

society
Nestlé’s unfair
trade
How the Nestlé executives must be laughing in
their Swiss headquarters as the world of ethical
consumerism ties itself in knots.
The highly respected Fairtrade Foundation
has a logo which it allows on products supplied
by farmers paid a
half-decent wage.
Nestlé has launched
a brand of coffee –
Partners Blend –
which, the company
says, conforms to
the fair trade
principles, and the
Foundation has duly
allowed the logo
onto the Partners
Blend label.
This has
infuriated a sizable
section of the ethical
consumer
community who
believe that Nestlé's treatment of its third world
workers is a scandal and that 99%
of the company's coffee will still
be unfairly traded – indeed, as
one of the big three world
coffee producers, Nestlé could
be blamed for causing much
of the unfair trade which the
Fairtrade Foundation is trying
to combat.
The Foundation claims
that its hands are tied,
as it is required to judge
the ethical trading
compliance of a product,
not a company. But a
survey of Nestlé boycott
supporters (who boycott
Nestlé for its
continued flouting of
the Code of
Marketing of
Breastmilk
Substitutes)
indicates that
many ethical
consumers believe
the Fairtrade logo
endorses Nestlé the
company, not just
Partners Blend.
For the record…
This year alone Nestlé has been highlighted for
its terrible record on workers’ rights. In July, a
leading US human rights organisation (the
International Labour Rights Fund) filed a lawsuit
against Nestlé and two other companies for
‘trafficking, torture and forced labour’ of children
who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans that the
companies import from Africa.
In Colombia, there have been repeated
murder threats made by paramilitary
organisations targeting Nestle workers who have
been trying to form a union. After a long and
violent conflict Nestlé finally succeeded in
destroying the trade union section in the milk
powder factory Cicolac.
And this September, in the Philippines, a
trade union leader at the largest Nestlé plant in
the country was murdered. Unidentified gunmen
shot Diosdado Fortuna as he left the factory
where he had been campaigning for two years
for collective bargaining and pension rights.
“D’you think we’re being unfair”
GM animal feed
The GM Freeze campaign and a coalition of
campaign organisations has met with
supermarkets and producers to discuss the
possibilities of their removing all GM animal feed
from their supply chains.
The biggest market for GM products in
Europe remains animal feed, mainly soya meal
imported from the US and Latin America. Any
increase in the planting of GM soya for animal
feed would start to have an impact on the
availability of non-GM soya derivatives in human
food such as lecithin in chocolate and biscuits,
which are by-products of the animal feed
industry.
The GM Freeze reports that whilst the
relatively small Marks & Spencer has done the
most and removed GM animal feed from much of
its fresh animal produce (including milk, meat,
fish and eggs), most of the others have gone
only partially down this route. Indeed Tesco and
Sainsbury’s are now telling their customers that
the reason they have not gone further in their
non-GM policy is to help hard-pressed farmers:
‘The farming community have told us that to
extend the range of meat we sell from animals
fed on non-GM would put immense pressure on
them' came Tesco’s reply to customer letter,
received in July 2005.
So what would it cost supermarkets to go
GM-free Non-GM animal feed in the UK was
only fetching around £5 per tonne premium last
year. This is because soya and maize only make
up a fraction of the ration of a dairy cow and
other factors, such as labour, are far more
significant in the total costs of production. This
would mean an approximate 0.15 pence per litre
increase if cows were fed a GM-free
diet. Hard pressed dairy farmers may
struggle to absorb such a cost but the
highly profitable retail sector should
surely be able to cope with it.
Last year, Tesco sold 17% of the
UK's liquid milk sales or 1.1billion litres
per year – 30% of supermarket sales.* A
0.15p per litre increase would cost the company
approximately £1.65m. Sounds a lot but in the
great scheme of things it amounts to only 0.08%
of the pre-tax profit announced this year by
Tesco (£2,029m). So by paying a small premium
for non-GM milk, Tesco would protect farmers
from further pressure, meet customer demands
and the company could bask in the glory of a job
well done.
It won't escape the notice of farmers that the
Chief Executive Officer of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy,
could cover the premium of non-GM milk out of
the £3.19 million salary package he received last
year, and still leave plenty to spare!
* Figures from the Milk Development Council and
Taylor-Nelson Sofres (TNS)