Press release: Supermarkets fall short in tackling fair income for farmers and workers

Supermarkets are falling short in their approach to fair payment for farmers and workers in their supply chains. This is evident from Superlijst Sociaal, an annual benchmarking report scoring Dutch and Belgian supermarkets on human rights in their supply chains.

Supermarkets are well aware of the major risks of abuses such as child labour and extreme poverty in their supply chains. While they do work on fair income in the banana and cocoa supply chains, a comprehensive approach for all high-risk products is lacking. All supermarkets, from bottom-ranked Carrefour (here referring specifically to its Belgian operations) to frontrunner Lidl, must take action.

Comparison of supermarkets' commitment to human rights

Farmers and agricultural workers worldwide are often underpaid and, partly as a result, face poverty, child labour, and forced labour. Superlijst Sociaal is an initiative of think tank Questionmark (a Dutch think tank specialising in sustainability research) in collaboration with Rikolto and with support from Fairtrade Belgium and Oxfam Belgium. The study compares what the five largest Belgian and six largest Dutch supermarkets are doing to combat abuses in their supply chains.

Lidl is performing significantly better than the other Belgian supermarkets. This is because it maps out its high-risk supply chains in detail, such as cashews from Ivory Coast and oranges from Brazil, and addresses these risks with action plans. Colruyt (a major Belgian supermarket chain) has caught up in the rankings, partly thanks to projects in its supply chains to improve the living conditions of farmers.

Women remain disadvantaged

Supermarkets also still pay too little attention to women's rights in their supply chains. Not a single supermarket actively tackles the wage gap in its supply chains, even though they all acknowledge that women earn significantly less than men on average. Only Lidl has action plans to prevent violence against women and close the wage gap.