Food and Beverage Sector Company Disclosure

In 2020, KnowTheChain assessed the 60 largest global food and beverage companies on their efforts to address forced labor risks in their supply chains. In addition to assessing information available on companies’ websites, KnowTheChain invited benchmarked companies over a period of three months (March-May 2020) to review the information identified, and to provide additional information.

 

• 57% of companies engaged during the 3 months period, by providing additional disclosure (47%) or sending links to existing disclosure (10%)
• 10% of companies engaged informally engaged with KnowTheChain (i.e., outside of the formal three-month engagement period)
• 33% of companies did not engage with KnowTheChain between July 2019 and June 2020 (beyond confirming a contact for KnowTheChain)

Please find below details on the engagement details with each company.

 

Company name	Headquarters	Engagement with KnowTheChain (Jul2019 – Jun2020)*	2020 Disclosure	2018 Disclosure	2016 Disclosure
Aeon	Japan	Informal	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Ahold Delhaize	Netherlands	Yes	Provided additional disclosure and sent link	Responded, and provided updated response	[Not included]
Almarai	Saudi Arabia	No	No response	No response	[Not included]
Amazon	United States	Yes	Sent links	[Not included]	[Not included]
Arca Continental	Mexico	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	[Not included]	[Not included]
Archer-Daniels-Midland	United States	Yes	Sent link	Sent link	No response
Associated British Foods	United Kingdom	Yes	Sent links	Responded	Sent link**
Avenue Supermarkets	India	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Britannia	India	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
BRF	Brazil	n/a	[Not included]	No response	Provided links to report, guidelines, webpage
Campbell Soup	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Sent additional disclosure and further information	[Not included]
Carrefour	France	No	No response	Responded	[Not included]
Mengniu	Hong Kong	Informal	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Coca-Cola	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	Responded*
Coca-Cola European Partners	United Kingdom	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Sent additional disclosure, and further updates	[Not included]
Coca-Cola HBC	Switzerland	Informal	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Coles	Australia	Yes	Provided additional disclosure and sent links	[Assessed as Wesfarmers including Coles] Responded, provided additional disclosure and links	[Not included]
Colruyt Group	Belgium	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Conagra	United States	No	No response	No response	Provided link
Costco	United States	Informal	No response	Sent link	[Not included]
Danone	France	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	Responded
FamilyMart	Japan	Yes	Sent additional disclosure and link	[Not included]	[Not included]
FEMSA	Mexico	No	No response	No response	No response**
Foshan Haitian Flavouring and Food	China	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
General Mills	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Provided additional disclosure	Sent links to report, policy, statement
Hershey’s	United States	Yes	Sent links	Responded	Responded**
Hormel Foods	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	No response	[Not included]
Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group	China	No	No response	No response	[Not included]
JBS	Brazil	Informal	No response	Sent link	Responded
Kellogg	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	Provided links to this webpage and this webpage
Kerry	Ireland	Yes	Sent additional disclosure and links to statementand revised supplier code	Provided additional disclosure	[Not included]
Keurig Dr Pepper	United States	Yes	Sent link	[Not included]	[Not included]
Kraft Heinz	United States	No	No response	Sent additional disclosure	Submittedstatement**
Kroger	United States	Yes	Sent links to report (pp. 146-148 and 150) and commitment	Responded and provided links (2016 report, 2017 report, statement)	[Not included]
Lamb Weston	United States	Informal	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Loblaw	Canada	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	[Not included]
Lindt	Switzerland	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded	[Not included]
McCormick	United States	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Mead Johnson, now Reckitt Benckiser	United States	n/a	[Not included]	[Not included]	Responded
Meiji Holdings	Japan	Yes	Provided additional disclosure** and sent links to	[Not included]	[Not included]
Mondelez	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	Responded**
Monster Beverage	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Provided additional disclosure	No response
Mowi	Norway	Informal	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Nestlé	Switzerland	Yes	Sent additional disclosure and links (1, 2, 3)	Responded	Responded**
PepsiCo	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Provided additional disclosure	Sent link**
San Miguel Food and Beverage	Philippines	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Saputo	Canada	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	[Not included]	[Not included]
Seven & i	Japan	Yes	Provided additional disclosure, additional information and link*	[Not included]	[Not included]
Sun Art Retail	Hong Kong	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Smucker’s	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosureand links	[Not included]
Suntory	Japan	No	No response	Responded and provided additional disclosure	[Not included]
Tesco	United Kingdom	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	[Not included]
Tyson Foods	United States	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Provided additional disclosure	No response
Unilever	United Kingdom	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	Responded
Vietnam Dairy Products	Vietnam	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
Walmart	United States	No	No response	Responded and sent link**	[Not included]
Want Want China	China	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]
WH Group	Hong Kong	No	No response	No response	[Not included]
Wilmar	Singapore	Yes	Provided additional disclosure and further information	Responded and provided additional disclosure, and further information	Responded**
Woolworths	Australia	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	Responded and provided additional disclosure	[Not included]
Yakult	Japan	Yes	Provided additional disclosure	[Not included]	[Not included]
Yonghui Superstores	China	No	No response	[Not included]	[Not included]

*KnowTheChain assesses engagement levels similarly to the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark:

• “Yes” indicates that a company participated in the research process by having an engagement call with KnowTheChain or submitted links or additional disclosure to KnowTheChain during the three-month engagement period (March to May 2020).
• “Informal” engagement means a company had some form of contact with KnowTheChain between July 2019 and June 2020. This could include an email enquiring about KnowTheChain or its benchmarking methodology or a call outside the engagement period.
• “No” means a company did not interact with KnowTheChain between July 2019 and June 2020.

** Note the 2020 benchmark includes information published as of February 2020, or through May 2020 where companies provided additional disclosure or links. Some companies have since published relevant information. For example:

 

• Meiji – Supplier Code of Conduct (Aug 2020) and ESG data (Aug 2020)

Company engagement process for the 2018 and 2016 benchmarks

 

• 2018: To reduce the reporting burden for companies, ahead of the 2018 benchmarks, we asked companies to respond to 2-3 questions to point us in the direction of relevant disclosure. Further, we provided companies an opportunity to review the initial research findings, and to provide additional disclosure for indicators where disclosure was missing.
• 2016: Ahead of benchmark publication, we had invited companies to response to a set of engagement questions that correspond to the benchmark methodology.

Information made available by benchmarked companies outside the 2018 and 2016 disclosure periods is available here.