When most of us pop to the shops to pick up some milk, bread or maybe a treat for the kids, we rarely stop and wonder whether the person serving us or restocking the shelves is a slave. Which seems reasonable.
After all, modern slavery is something that happens overseas on farms, or in sweatshop factories run by unscrupulous operators, right? Wrong. It’s happening right here, under our very noses.
According to a new report by anti-slavery charity Unseen, consumers understand exploitation in global manufacturing supply chains – even if it’s an uncomfortable place to let our minds wander while we check out our chocolate bars. But “there is little awareness that modern slavery is taking place on high streets and corner shops in neighbourhoods across the UK”.
But it does, and the figures prove it is getting worse. According to Unseen’s analysis, modern slavery cases in the UK retail sector almost doubled from 2024 to 2025, with food and drink retailers by far the worst offenders.
People, not statistics
The number of modern slavery cases reported to Unseen’s Modern Slavery & Exploitation Helpline in the retail sector doubled from 33 in 2024 to 65 in 2025, while the number of potential victims rose from 100 to 201. As Unseen points out, it’s important to remember that “every statistic represents a person expecting opportunity, safety and independence, and instead encountered abuse and control”.
Retail as a whole was the fifth most common industry for modern slavery cases reported to the helpline. And the picture gets much worse for “food, drink and supermarkets” once retail is broken down further – between January 2025 and June 2026 food and drink retail accounted for 69% of cases and 76% of potential victims.
That came out at 201 potential victims in food, drink and supermarkets, compared with six in electronics retail outlets, five in automobiles, four in clothing and accessories, and three in furniture and homewares.
Perhaps the hardest thing to take about these numbers is that it’s getting worse, not better. Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a cover feature asking whether food and drink was doing enough to tackle modern slavery.
At the time, most of the concern was around people being enslaved to work in fast food franchises and factories that supplied a number of the nation’s favourite supermarkets. Those supermarkets shared a slew of information on and examples of their work in this area. They also pointed out various dates that they’d stopped working with the suppliers in question.
Nowhere to hide
But food and drink retailers can’t attempt to shift the blame to dodgy factory owners any more. As Unseen’s figures show, it’s happening right there in the supermarkets and convenience stores where customers are picking up their groceries.
The 2015 Modern Slavery Act made it a legal requirement for businesses with more than £36m turnover to produce an annual modern slavery statement. Of course, that counts out the vast majority of c-stores, but all the supermarkets publish one. But Justine Carter, deputy CEO of Unseen, who was a senior policy adviser on the act, told The Grocer last year that, 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 explained. “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.”
The industry’s overeagerness to map out global issues while ignoring domestic risks – one of the blind spots identified by Unseen when analysing modern slavery statements – appears to have come home to roost.
As the new report points out: “When exploitation is hidden in plain sight, it can go unnoticed by customers, local communities, businesses and those responsible for identifying and responding to it.”
A reminder: cases have doubled. That’s hundreds more human beings in the UK’s corner shops, convenience stores and supermarkets being subjected to financial control, debt bondage, withheld wages, restricted movement, monitoring, insecure accommodation, intimidation and threats.
Whatever it is that food and drink retailers are doing, it’s not working.
So, to answer the question posed by my feature last year: Is the food and drink industry doing enough to tackle modern slavery? The answer is clear. No.
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