Distribution Network
Content
An American snack food company is to develop an ethical supply chain
monitoring programme that goes beyond recent efforts by chocolate
manufacturers to tackle child labour and poor workplace standards on
cocoa farms in Africa.
The Hershey Company will work with the monitoring body Verite and US-based Business for Social Responsibility on the programme, which will cover health and safety, the environment and food safety issues.
The intention is to monitor the company’s entire supply chain, not just cocoa sourcing.
Walden Asset Management, one of Hershey’s shareholders, recently tabled a resolution calling on the company to set up a ‘broad-based’ supplier code of conduct together with a system for checking compliance.
Since 2001, chocolate manufacturers in Europe and the US have been making efforts to curb child slave labour in the West African cocoa industry (EP3, issue 6) and claim to have made some progress.
But Hershey intends to expand its monitoring to all its global operations, including suppliers of sugar and other ingredients. The company has an annual turnover of $5billion (£2.6bn) and 13,000 employees.
The Hershey Company will work with the monitoring body Verite and US-based Business for Social Responsibility on the programme, which will cover health and safety, the environment and food safety issues.
The intention is to monitor the company’s entire supply chain, not just cocoa sourcing.
Walden Asset Management, one of Hershey’s shareholders, recently tabled a resolution calling on the company to set up a ‘broad-based’ supplier code of conduct together with a system for checking compliance.
Since 2001, chocolate manufacturers in Europe and the US have been making efforts to curb child slave labour in the West African cocoa industry (EP3, issue 6) and claim to have made some progress.
But Hershey intends to expand its monitoring to all its global operations, including suppliers of sugar and other ingredients. The company has an annual turnover of $5billion (£2.6bn) and 13,000 employees.
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