‘Supermarket reports insufficiently on how to deal with human rights violations’

Dutch supermarkets are insufficiently transparent about how they deal with human rights violations — such as forced labour, discrimination and exploitation — at suppliers. This is the conclusion of market researcher Questionmark in a report published on Tuesday, in collaboration with development organizations Oxfam Novib and Solidaridad. The organization looked at Albert Heijn, Dirk, Ekoplaza, Jumbo, Aldi, Plus and Lidl, together accounting for 80 percent of the Dutch market.

The research states that no supermarket reports enough on how it safeguards the human rights of workers, farmers and women with whom it works. According to a Solidaridad spokesman, ‘sufficient reporting’ means that supermarkets meet the requirements set by the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The researchers have only focused on human rights violations; they omitted themes such as health, the environment and animal welfare.

Dirk gate closer

In the survey, Questionmark indicates with percentages how well the supermarkets are doing in their opinion. With a score of 2.8 percent, Dirk is the runner-up in this area. Plus also underperforms with a score of 12.8 percent. Leading the pack is Lidl (44.5 percent), which Questionmark says is the most advanced in reporting how the company deals with human rights issues. Yet concrete actions are largely absent there, as with the other supermarkets surveyed, according to the report.

For example, most supermarkets have drawn up a policy to achieve gender equality among employees — to close the pay gap between men and women, for example — but only Aldi has an action plan to really tackle gender-related discrimination. Furthermore, according to Questionmark, Dirk, Plus, Jumbo and Ekoplaza explain too little about how they combat forced and child labor. This is in contrast to Lidl, for example, which works with farmers’ cooperatives in Ghana, Tanzania and Honduras to support small-scale farmers and improve the position of women. The supermarket also offers employees training on child labour.

Small-scale farmers

The position of small-scale farmers vis-à-vis large supermarkets is often weak, because supermarkets determine how the profit of the products sold is distributed. None of the surveyed supermarkets report on how the profit is distributed exactly. Nevertheless, the supermarkets are committed to improving human rights in some supplier chains, such as in the cocoa and banana chain. For example, Albert Heijn, Aldi and Plus work together with Tony’s Chocolonely to offer cocoa farmers a ‘living wage’, an income required for a decent standard of living, which in many countries exceeds the legal minimum wage.

Lidl supports small-scale cocoa and coffee farmers with the so-called Way to Go range, in which the farmers receive an extra premium in order to achieve a living wage. The banana farmer is also getting closer to a living wage: all seven supermarkets are looking at how they can achieve a living wage for farmers in this chain.

Questionmark believes that supermarkets should make more efforts to realize partnerships such as those that exist in the cocoa and banana supply chain.