The NGOs accuse Nestlé of accuse the company of having profited from child and forced labour on coffee farms
Keystone / Jean-Christophe Bott
Swiss food giant Nestlé has rejected accusations by human rights and environmental organisations regarding violations of the German Supply Chain Act.
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A Nestlé spokeswoman told the news agency AWP on Thursday that Nestlé had either not been directly involved with the companies concerned or had terminated cooperation with individual suppliers if they had not met the company’s standards.
The company went on to say that it takes the allegations “very seriously”, as they are not compatible with its own high standards. Each situation mentioned by the NGOs had been carefully investigated at the time of publication.
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Nestlé has human rights due diligence procedures in place for the procurement of its raw materials in order to comply with all legal requirements, international standards and its own principles for responsible sourcing, the spokesperson continued. If there are indications of problems in the supply chain, the cases are investigated and measures are taken together with direct suppliers – up to and including the termination of business relationships.
Several NGOs, including Coffee Watch and China Labor Watch, filed complaints in Germany against Nestlé, Dallmayr and the Starbucks operator Amrest. They accuse the companies of having profited from child and forced labour on coffee farms in Uganda, Brazil and China. Labourers are said to have been employed on the farms under dangerous conditions, with low wages and sometimes without contracts. The complaints were sent to the German Federal Office of Economics and Export Control.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
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