The ethics of Big Food
LAST month, the international aid organisation Oxfam launched a campaign called Behind the Brands. The goal is to assess the transparency of the world’s 10 biggest food and beverage companies on how their goods are produced, and to rate their performance on sensitive issues such as the treatment of small-scale farmers, the sustainable use of water and land, climate change and the exploitation of women.
Consumers have an ethical responsibility to be aware of how their food is produced, and big brands have a corresponding obligation to be more transparent about their suppliers, so their customers can make informed choices about what they’re eating.
In many cases, the biggest food companies themselves don’t know how they perform on these issues, betraying a profound lack of ethical responsibility on their part.
Nestlé scored highest on transparency, as it provides information on at least some of its commodity sources and auditing systems. But even its rating is only “fair”.
General Mills was at the bottom of the transparency rankings.
In addition to this lack of transparency, Oxfam’s report identifies several deficiencies common to all of the big-10 food companies.
They are not providing small-scale farmers with an equal opportunity to sell into their supply chains.
And even when small-scale farmers do have the opportunity to sell to the big brands’ suppliers, they may not receive a fair price for their produce.
Nor are the big-10 brands taking sufficient responsibility to ensure their larger-scale farm suppliers pay their workers a decent living wage.
There are 450 million wage workers in agriculture world-wide, and in many countries they're inadequately paid. It’s estimated that 60 per cent of them live in poverty.
Some of the big 10 are doing more than others to develop ethical policies in these areas.
Unilever, for example, has committed itself to sourcing more raw materials from smallscale farmers, and has pledged 100 per cent sustainable sourcing
Consumers are encouraged to contact companies directly and urge them to demonstrate greater responsibility in obtaining the ingredients for their products.
In this way, Oxfam hopes, its Behind the Brands campaign will trigger a “race to the top” in which big corporations compete to achieve the highest possible score, and to become known as truly transparent actors that produce food and beverages with a high degree of ethical responsibility.
The changes that have already occurred show that if big corporations know their consumers want them to act more ethically, they will do so.
To be effective, such a campaign requires individual consumers to take it upon themselves to become better informed about the food and beverages they consume, to make their voices heard, and to make purchasing choices that are influenced by ethics as well as by taste and price.