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World's biggest food companies 'failing millions of people'

Research by Oxfam shows ten of the world’s largest companies are ranking low in terms of ethical standards.

INTERNATIONAL AGENCY OXFAM has said that the social and environmental policies of the world’s ten biggest food and beverage giants are failing millions of people who who supply land, labour, water and commodities needed to make their products.

The charity has ranked the agricultural policies, public commitments and supply chain oversight of of Associated British Foods (ABF), Coca Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, Pepsico and Unilever for the first time.

ABF, Kellogs and General Mills fared worst while Nestlé had the highest score at 54 per cent. In a statement today, Kellogg’s said it is committed to “a sustainable, ethical and transparent supply chain”.

“We are working more closely with the farmers who grow our grains to drive collaborative sustainability improvements,” the company said. “We also have a zero-tolerance position against forced labor, including slavery and human trafficking.”

Oxfam’s said while some of the companies have publicly committed to women’s’ rights, none have committed to eliminating discrimination against women throughout their supply chains. Furthermore none of the companies have declared a ‘zero tolerance’ against land and water grabs. The organisation said all ten companies are “overly secretive” about their agricultural supply chains.

Companies are generally increasing their overall water efficiency but Oxfams said most have failed to put policies in place to limit their impact on local water sources. Only Pepsi has publicly recognised water as a human right and committed to consult local communities. Nestlé has also developed guidelines for its suppliers to manage water and was ranked top for policies on water.

While all of the companies have taken steps to reduce direct emissions, only five publicly report on agricultural emissions associated with their products.

None have publicly committed to pay a fair price to farmers or fair business arrangements with them across all agricultural operations. Only Unilever – which is top-ranked for its dealings with small-scale farmers – has specific supplier guidelines to address some key issues faced by farmers.

‘Take responsibility’

Chief Executive of Oxfam Ireland Jim Clarken said it is “time these companies take more responsibility for their immense influence on poor people’s lives”.

“Eighty percent of the world’s hungry people work in food production and these companies employ millions of people in developing countries to grow their ingredients,” he said. “They control hundreds of the world’s most popular brands and have the economic, social and political clout to make a real and lasting difference to the world’s poor and hungry.”

The ‘Behind the Brands’ campaign will launch in more than 12 countries including the US, Mexico, China, Brazil and across Europe.

Its first public action will target Nestle, Mondelez and Mars for “their failure to address inequality faced by women who grow cocoa for their chocolate products”. Oxfam said it is urging the three companies to do more to know and show how women are treated in their supply chains, create an action plan to address inequality for women in their supply chains and engage in advocacy to influence other powerful actors to do the same.

Read: Hunger remains ‘major’ global threat to world’s poorest and most vulnerable>

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39 Comments
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    Mute Eric Nolan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:22 PM

    Business is about profits, nothing else. The only reason they pretend otherwise is to make more profit.

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    Mute Emily Elephant
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:34 PM

    What’s Oxfam about? Genuine question.

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    Mute Eric Nolan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:37 PM

    They’re a charity.

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    Mute John Duggan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:45 PM

    I agree with Eric, ethics have no place in free market economies, just as special interest groups have no place in governments.

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    Mute Andrew Telford
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    Feb 26th 2013, 5:38 PM

    Free market economics fall apart as consumers move up the hierarchy of needs and start thinking more what does this product say about me and less what does this product cost…

    Case in point… The Toyota Prius

    30
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    Mute John Duggan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 5:45 PM

    No it doesn’t Andrew, that’s just one of the many factors which effects demand. Companies can combat this with advertising etc. Free markets are the natural way things have always been, it is the attempt to regulate and stop natural order occurring (bank bailouts case and point) that have led us to this point.

    Without free markets we would have no-one to borrow money from.

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    Mute Conor Murphy
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    Feb 26th 2013, 6:06 PM

    They only reason they might be decent companies is to look good? Still would mean they’d be decent companies…

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    Mute Eric Nolan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 6:24 PM

    @John Duggan
    Couldn’t agree with you there. I was making an observation on the damage the free market has done. Speculators have far too much power over our economies and in my opinion the power of the faceless markets has gone way too far.
    More controls are needed, not less. Our economy is a good example of this, Anglo and Nib etc

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    Mute Eric Nolan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 6:35 PM

    @conor Murphy
    I think the prime motivation is always profit and without controls they will always take profitable shortcuts regardless of the human cost. ( ie horse meat.) In these circumstances decency is often false and if not usually temporary.

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    Mute Derek O'Brien
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    Feb 26th 2013, 6:37 PM

    John, stop attention seeking with Stupid comments on the journal.

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    Mute PunchUinFACE
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    Feb 26th 2013, 7:12 PM

    John D. Free markets, what? So is the health industry s free market?
    Is the oil industry a free market?
    “Free market”. A term used to confuse the masses.

    And bailouts are a direct consequence of interference in this so called free market. WTF are u talking about,,well u are half right by default I suppose

    Your wrong, dead wrong and a walking testament to the power of misinformation campaigns designed to confuse & divide the slave working force!

    Wake up!

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    Mute PunchUinFACE
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    Feb 26th 2013, 7:16 PM

    Horse meat is one of the many tools being used by the “market” in keeping the “real” inflation figure down.

    Also smaller quantities, poorer quality etc

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    Mute John Duggan
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    Feb 26th 2013, 8:07 PM

    No, the health service is not an industry in this country. The government provides it. Some people pay for speedier or non-essential services (myself included) via insurance. That is a choice afforded to us by the free market.

    The free market is choice. Choice to buy, or not, or sell ,or not, at certain prices. A truly free market would have seen anglo go bankrupt. A truly free market would not have allowed the government, via lendings, to create such a deficit or to bail-out the banks. The markets are being restricted and artificially changed by the EU. But you can only hold the tide back for so long.

    We are the market, it is not something somewhere we don’t control. We are the constituents of the free market.

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    Mute PunchUinFACE
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    Feb 26th 2013, 10:03 PM

    Hi John,

    Think big, and please read this recent article from Time Magazine (Surprised as u Time who would have thought it!)

    http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/5/

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    Mute Michael
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    Feb 27th 2013, 12:48 AM

    And you make profits by satisfying the demand of customers.

    This is a nonsense statement.

    If you don’t like it? Use an alternative.

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    Mute Eric Nolan
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    Feb 27th 2013, 10:40 AM

    Your missing the point Michael, but I think that’s how you roll ,looking at your other comments below. Consumers generally only care about price and quality, ethics come second. Suppliers/workers often get abused in pursuit of further profits.

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    Mute Michael
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    Feb 27th 2013, 12:55 PM

    I’m clearly not missing the point. Anyone who doesn’t understand what I mean does not understand economics. Every country that has ever succeeded has used capitalism and freedom to do so.

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    Mute Michael
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    Feb 27th 2013, 12:58 PM

    Well then teach our kids about ethics. I’m tired of this wishy washy leftist rhetoric. Give me a solution. I gave one

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    Mute Eric Nolan
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    Feb 27th 2013, 2:27 PM

    You didn’t give a solution, you gave the status quo. I think you don’t understand the bigger picture, the world is bigger than consumers. I’m not advocating an end to capitalism, but more controls are needed on businesses, particularly those operating across borders. We should not lose sight of what they are, and what their motivation is, profit. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as long as they are policed correctly and people aren’t fooled into thinking they are any different to that.

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    Mute eastpoint
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:16 PM

    Profit first, people last! Gotta love the cold, ruthless nature of capitalism. Communism wasnt much better mind you. Thank god we have honourable politicians to look after our interests!

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    Mute Justin Devaney
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:37 PM

    At least if we lived under a communist government we would know we were eating horse.

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    Mute Paul Doyle
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    Feb 26th 2013, 5:03 PM

    Because horse would be all there would be to eat, if we were lucky.

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    Mute Michael
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    Feb 27th 2013, 12:50 AM

    Wanna go ahead and propose a better system then? Seeing as you can state the obvious so well?

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    Mute Eoin Darcy
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:36 PM

    Pretty sure they are all Monsanto customers as well,the future looks bleak!

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Feb 26th 2013, 5:13 PM

    Eoin , how are you so sure. Snappy comment ‘though.

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    Mute Eoin Darcy
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    Feb 26th 2013, 5:30 PM

    Can’t be sure of much these days Rory ,investigative journalism is dead and buried ,I’m happy enough to take the facts when they canbe found and form my own opinion,these big companies care as much for your well being as Monsanto cared about the people of Vietnam when it created agent orange.

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    Mute Martin Gregory
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    Feb 26th 2013, 5:39 PM
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    Mute Hank
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:22 PM

    Wow I’m amazed, this is such a shock.

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    Mute Nikolas Koehler
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    Feb 26th 2013, 6:07 PM

    7 billion people. That’s the elephant in the room. Fair-trade, organic and GM-free means that a large minority of the 7 billion will starve. But probably not in NW Europe, so let the others starve as long as we get a nice, smartly-designed self-congratulatory fair trade etc. symbol on our packaging.

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    Mute Michael
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    Feb 27th 2013, 12:51 AM

    Nailed it.

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    Mute Patrick Good
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:56 PM

    There’s so little context for this report. Yes we can see the scores the companies got but what standards were Oxfam applying in their assessment criteria?

    I’m not condoning actions these companies make that may hurt or take advantage of people but these results are completely ambiguous

    12
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    Mute Ronan Fitzgerald
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    Feb 26th 2013, 7:42 PM

    Anybody watch Utopia recently and wonder how close to reality it was. The level of control and reach… Not necessarily the sterilisation bit… unless you saw Bill gates at the TED talks.

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Feb 26th 2013, 4:34 PM

    Surprise, surprise!

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 26th 2013, 6:21 PM

    Check out this video on YouTube:

    http://youtu.be/YfCQMjFvg4M

    Corporations and banks can do what they want and governments say nothing, gov bail out the baks thy do that.

    7
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    Mute David Robertson
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    Feb 26th 2013, 7:28 PM

    Can you do something about the quality of photos on the journal. Very difficult to see detail on mobile.

    4
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    Mute Kevin Smyth
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    Feb 26th 2013, 8:16 PM

    Private companies and corporations (apparently a corp is a person ??) have swallowed up so many of their competitors that they’ve become powerful behemoths. They can be very dangerous, and anyone who thinks otherwise, is a little naive.

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    Mute Ronan Fitzgerald
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    Feb 28th 2013, 8:07 PM

    Watch a movie called The Corporation…. it explains why a corp is legally a person….

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y888wVY5hzw

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    Mute Dermot O'Reilly
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    Jun 8th 2013, 3:34 PM

    It’s time for change in STANDARDS!

    The Government needs to put proper standards in place for all areas of Public Life!

    TDs Councillors and all Government Employees

    Lets start afresh!

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    Mute Gerry Ryan deG
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    Feb 26th 2013, 10:13 PM

    The lady doth protest too much, methinks

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