Is the food and drink industry doing enough to tackle modern slavery?

One of 16 victims, a BBC investigation in September last year showed that multiple warning signs of modern slavery were missed for years while the men worked at a McDonald’s franchise in Cambridgeshire between 2015-2019 and Hoddeson and Tottenham factories run by Speciality Flatbreads, a bread company that supplied Asda, Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose, between 2012-2019.

So, one year on from the investigation’s release, has anything changed?

McDonald’s UK and all the supermarkets supplied by Speciality Flatbreads declined The Grocer’s offer of interviews, though most provided statements and pointed out the work they’re doing to address modern slavery.

“Together with our franchisees, we have taken action to strengthen the ability of our people and systems to detect and deter potential risks, such as shared bank accounts, excessive working hours, and reviewing the use of interpreters in interviews,” said a McDonald’s spokesperson.

The John Lewis Partnership, meanwhile, says audits had raised concerns about Speciality Flatbreads and it stopped sourcing from the company before the issues came to light – though no specific date was supplied. JLP says it has not made any changes as a direct result of the case, as its processes worked as expected.

Tesco told The Grocer an independent audit revealed concerning workplace practices, and the supermarket stopped working with Speciality Flatbreads in 2020.

Sainsbury’s says it stopped working with the supplier in May 2016, while M&S delisted it over four years ago but says new measures in response to the investigation were not required in the past year, as its processes had led to swift action. The Co-op says it stopped working with Speciality Flatbreads in early 2022 and that during the period of supply it carried out several unannounced assessments but identified no modern slavery issues.

Given the men were working at Speciality Flatbreads between 2012 and 2019 though, all the supermarkets failed to pick up on the fact that modern slavery was taking place in their supply chain at some point.

“I can’t really comment on the cases themselves – that’s for individual businesses. But there are clear learnings we can take from the cases to prevent future harms,” says Sophie De Salis, sustainability policy advisor at the BRC.

Asked whether it seemed reasonable that some of the supermarkets had not updated their policies and procedures as a result of the case, Justine Carter, deputy CEO at modern slavery charity Unseen, says it’s “quite a difficult one to answer”.

“We’re working with many of the names mentioned. So, we’d like to think that, strategically, there is a shift. The question is whether that gets all the way down into supply chains. Modern slavery in food and drink quite often stems from the complex supply chains in play, the vulnerable labour, and the lack of transparency,” she says. “And we still see businesses and pressures that prioritise lower costs over worker welfare.”

De Salis adds that the supermarkets “work really closely together”. In the past year, the BRC has revised its serious incident escalation protocols, and De Salis points out the Seasonal Worker Scheme Taskforce – established in 2023 – has been “a great initiative”.

In March, the Home Office published updated statutory guidance on how businesses should comply with Section 54 (the Transparency in Supply Chains requirement) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. While the update stopped short of changing companies’ legal obligations – as some called for – it does set out clearer expectations and raises the bar for corporate action on modern slavery. It followed the Joint Committee on Human Rights announcing a new inquiry into forced labour in UK supply chains in January.

The changes are needed too. The fmcg sector is particularly exposed to modern slavery risks, according to Carter, who rates the industry’s performance as “OK”.

“Some are much better than others,” she says. “But is food and drink making as much ground as, say, the financial sector now? Probably not.”

Is the sector doing enough?

No one is suggesting food & drink is ignoring modern slavery. The supermarkets provided a slew of information on and examples of their work in this area.

Tesco points out that it provides independent, confidential protector lines for colleagues and suppliers and has over 35 Tesco human rights experts in 15 countries.

M&S claims it is the only retailer to review and grade every supplier as part of an ethical audit, requires all UK/ROI sites to participate in its ‘worker voice’ programme, and has sponsored 2,354 individuals to attend modern slavery training since 2013.

The Co-op, meanwhile, pointed out that an independent benchmarking analysis last year recognised its modern slavery statement as the strongest among its peer group. Sainsbury’s sent a link to its modern slavery statement, which says new suppliers go through a “robust onboarding process” and draws attention to its partnership with the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab to research evolving human rights risks.

“There’s greater awareness now of these issues – prosecutions always help that,” says Professor Andrew Crane, an expert in corporate responsibility and modern slavery at the University of Bath, after reviewing the list of modern slavery policies provided to The Grocer. “But in terms of prevention, I wouldn’t say so much has changed. They’re doing something: worker voice, hotlines, whistleblowing – all this kind of stuff is good. But ultimately, they’re still operating on a business model that takes advantage of exploitation further down the chain, and they’re not fundamentally changing that. It shows the hypocrisy of these kinds of statements.”

Carter was a senior policy adviser on the Modern Slavery Act, which made it a legal requirement for businesses with more than £36m turnover to produce an annual modern slavery statement. All the supermarkets publish one, but she now thinks, in some cases, they “aren’t worth the paper they’re written on”.

“I don’t think it’s the policies or the processes that are at fault – it’s how they’re implemented and the understanding of them,” Carter explains. “The processes might say: we do this, we review that, and we ask for this. But it’s more about what action you take on the ground. So, it’s knowing what you’re looking at, not taking a yes or no at face value, asking for evidence, checking it if it doesn’t feel right, not being complacent.

“I quite often hear: ‘Well, they’re OK. We have a great relationship with them.’ Actually, that’s where you should be looking even more, because that great relationship might mean you’re cutting corners slightly.”

Unseen regularly comes across solid strategic understanding at the top of the chain, but as they dig deeper into the policies and processes, Carter says they often “don’t actually reach the ground – nobody understands it; sometimes nobody’s even seen it!”

The charity has analysed modern slavery statements from leading UK food manufacturers and identified three crucial areas that contribute to blind spots: limited worker due diligence; overeagerness to map out global issues while ignoring domestic risks; and lack of transparency over identified modern slavery cases.

Unseen’s research showed that while most companies mentioned whistleblower hotlines, few modern slavery statements openly discussed reports received or actions taken. This left the charity to conclude that either workers aren’t using these mechanisms, or they’re not well-communicated or trusted.

Meanwhile, the BRC’s De Salis decries the “lack of teeth” that modern slavery statements have, pointing out that to date there have been no prosecutions or fines for eligible companies that have simply not produced one.

“There’s a need for a level playing field,” she says. “The retailers can only go so far. It’s also on their suppliers. And their suppliers’ suppliers. There’s a chain there. Aid cuts are another concern.”

government certainly hasn’t been helping from a migration point of view. The current wave of anti-immigration rhetoric helps create an environment that can be exploited by human trafficking gangs.

“The UK is increasingly challenging from a legal migration point of view,” says Crane. “And what that tends to do is create incentives for people.

“Government should be solving the modern slavery problem primarily – and it’s not. The UK did once claim to be a leader in modern slavery legislation – around the time of the Modern Slavery Act – which wasn’t true at the time and absolutely isn’t true now,” he adds.

One potentially positive move is the creation of the Fair Work Agency (FWA), a single enforcement body due to be formed next year as part of last October’s Employment Rights Bill. The agency will be expected to crack down on workers’ rights abuses using its inspection powers and the ability to impose penalties on unscrupulous employers. Its remit will include aspects of the Modern Slavery Act.

The BRC is “very supportive” of the plans, says De Salis, and has written to the Department of Business & Trade to set out its vision for the FWA. “Our main concern is making sure the new agency has the right resources, particularly because it’s merging different bodies, the GLAA (Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority) being one of them,” she adds. “So, how can we make sure modern slavery and labour exploitation has a properly resourced unit?”

The industry has been here before. The Modern Slavery Act was heralded as a game-changer but has had limited impact in the UK – Crane says modern slavery appears to be worsening.

So, even with a shiny new agency, allied with reams of policies, procedures and promises from the industry’s biggest players, the likelihood is that modern slavery in fmcg will endure. At least, it will while the sector continues doing business in the same way, says Crane.

“Is it possible to stop modern slavery in food and drink? Well, you can ask a different question: Is anybody working at a computer in a supermarket’s head office in a modern slavery situation? We pretty much know they’re not. But we don’t know about the cleaners, the people in factories, the people working outside. And we certainly don’t know about the people overseas in the supply chains of the products they sell. So, we can guarantee some people, some professions, are not suffering modern slavery. Why? Because they’re the ones we ascribe value to and are willing to pay for.”