A Waitrose and Co-op supplier has carried out the first ever first human rights impact assessment for a livestock supply chain.
Pilgrim’s UK has conducted the first-of-its-kind human rights impact assessment (HRIA) into its integrated pork and lamb supply chains.
The majority of Waitrose and Co-op pork and all of Waitrose’s lamb products are sourced from Pilgrim’s UK, which is the biggest provider of higher welfare pork globally.
The assessment itself, notable for its scale and wide-ranging criteria, spanned Pilgrim’s UK’s outdoor-bred pig farms and lamb farms, as well as its processing and abattoir sites.
Until now, major HRIAs have focused on high-risk commodity supply chains such as coffee, sugar and cocoa.
Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning
This groundbreaking work will allow all businesses involved to gain a deeper understanding of how their practices are affecting farmers, workers and other stakeholders in UK pig and lamb supply chains.
It will also outline the actions they can take to mitigate, prevent or remediate any identified impacts.
The assessment covered the period from October 2021 to February 2022, during which the UK pork industry faced severe challenges, including labour shortages and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We welcome the HRIA report which reflects the challenges faced by workers in two modern agricultural supply chains,” said Waitrose ethics and sustainability advisor John Gregson.
“Even though we have strong and close relationships with our farmers and suppliers and are proud of our standards, we believe that the food and farming industries should be prepared to regularly submit themselves to scrutiny to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all stakeholders.”
Co-op senior human rights and ethical trading manager Aisha Aswani described looking after the people in its supply chain as a “priority”, adding that it was “proud to be building on commitments to transparency and protecting vulnerable workers”.
“Listening to workers and understanding the challenges they face is key to driving innovation in due diligence, creating genuine sustainable change, and ensuring that everyone producing our food gets a fair deal.”
In response to the findings, the businesses have published a joint Human Rights Action Plan to raise awareness of health and safety training, mental health and wellbeing, gender discrimination and access to grievance systems at every stage of the supply chain.
Pilgrim’s UK HR VP Rachel Baldwin, said it was a “major step” towards a “fully transparent and ethical supply chain, going beyond compliance”.
“As one of Britain’s largest pork providers, we know it’s our responsibility to set a precedent so that others across the industry might develop similar practices,” she added.
“We’re committed to raising awareness of workers’ rights and, while the meat industry has historically come up against perception challenges in this area, we want to do all we can to overturn those challenges by going further in understanding our supply chains and supporting workers.”
Ongoing worker welfare visits will also continue to take place throughout the year.
