supermarkets

Major European supermarkets have upped their dividend payouts to shareholders by an average of 123 percent during the first eight months of the pandemic. Shockingly, hardly any of these supermarkets paid any substantial COVID-19-related support to the workers and farmers who throughout the crisis kept supply chains going.

722 of the world’s biggest corporations together raked in over $1 trillion in windfall profits each year for the past two years amid soaring prices and interest rates, while billions of people are having to cut back or go hungry. 

While inequality was already deeply unfair before the pandemic, it has now reached shocking proportions. COVID-19 has cost global workers $3.7 trillion in lost income, and women and young workers have been hardest hit. Few places reveal this trend more clearly than supermarket supply chains.

A study initiated by the European Commission and released today says that new EU due diligence rules could significantly improve respect for human rights in the supply chains of European companies, says Oxfam.

Poverty pay, harsh working conditions, and gender discrimination are commonplace on the farms and plantations that supply tea, fruit and vegetables to supermarkets such as Lidl, PLUS, and Whole Foods reveals new research published by Oxfam today.

Workers on tea plantations in the Assam region of India are systematically denied their rights to decent working and living conditions. Oxfam’s research shows that the solutions lie in a fairer sharing of the end consumer price of tea, stronger gender policies and a review of plantation labour laws.

This briefing paper, part of Oxfam’s campaign to end human suffering in food supply chains, looks at in-work poverty and labour rights abuses faced by seasonal workers in Brazil’s tropical fruit sector, which supplies many major international supermarket chains.

This Oxfam briefing note presents compelling new evidence that our food supply chains are rife with violations of human, labour and women’s rights. it summarises new research commissioned for Oxfam, which shows the depth and scale of human suffering in food production in India and Brazil linked to international supermarket supply chains.

The European Commission, Parliament and member states agreed on rules to ban unfair trading practices in the EU food supply chain, which will help end the human suffering behind our food.