The food industry is mostly controlled by a handful of multinational conglomerates that own dozens or hundreds of companies.
These conglomerates decide what appears on grocery store shelves and they shape the public’s food preferences. Oftentimes, they depend on globally dispersed supply chains for the production and trade of food.
While this system allows for low costs and high profits, it creates opportunities for unethical and unsustainable practices such as exploitation of workers, abuse of women, land grabs, displacement of communities, deforestation, pollution of rivers, high emissions and so on.
Because most conglomerates are not legally tied to the full supply chain, they’ve argued in the past that it’s not their responsibility to police what happens.
But human rights and environmental activists claim this is a convenient and dangerous evasion. After all, the demand of conglomerates is what fuels the behavior of unscrupulous suppliers. So activists have been waging a years-long campaign for greater supply chain accountability, insisting that companies have much greater influence than they let on.
Ultimately, the current model of huge companies buying in bulk from unaccountable suppliers creates conditions for abuse to flourish. Instead of perversely incentivizing abuse, activists argue that multinationals can enforce sustainable and ethical practices by making contracts contingent on behavioral factors--even if it means paying higher prices or severing contracts.
Oxfam recently released its annual “Behind the Brands: Food Companies Scorecard” to document where the major companies fare on a range of issues.
The results aren’t very impressive, but progress has been made. Many of the reviewed companies now have rigorous guidelines for sustainability and ethics, but enforcement remains a different, and often neglected, matter.
Unilever--owner of brands as diverse as Breyer’s, Lipton and Bertolli--is at the front of the pack under the guidance of CEO Paul Polman who has made sustainability and ethics a core part of his mission. He has been recognized by the UN for his trailblazing corporate sustainability work.
Nestle has made some strides after being lambasted for its ties to slavery and theft of water rights.
Most of the companies still have a long way to go before they can be considered ethical or sustainable, but the added pressure from activists has made a difference in recent years.
As Oxfam analysts note, real change depends on improving the bargaining power of small scale farmers who are squeezed by the current model of multinational dominance. The food industry has been concentrating under the control of fewer and fewer players over the past few decades and this tendency has been a factor in the widespread abuses seen today.
Improving the livelihoods of small farmers would create a virtuous cycle that lifts people out of poverty and reduces the environmental destruction that often is done by unscrupulous and unaccountable suppliers.
The global food system has a lot of flaws, but it’s promising to see companies respond to the pressure of activists. Not only is it good for the environment and human rights generally, but, as companies are finding out, it’s good for their bottom lines, too.