Ten years of improving human rights in food supply chains | FNET anniversary

The Food Network for Ethical Trade is happy to share a blog announcing the release of the Tackling Discrimination Supplier Toolkit. Developed by Sainsbury’s and the Oxfam Business Advisory Service, the toolkit is an open-access tool designed to support businesses to tackle discrimination. This blog provides an overview of the tool and how it may be used by businesses aiming to address discrimination. This blog was written by Jiselle Steele and Sarah Picasso.

The Food Network for Ethical Trade is a membership organisation with nearly 80 members. We frequently have new members join, and they proceed through our “new member journey”, which we tailor to each individual member and their needs. Through this journey, they learn more about human rights in food supply chains, responsible sourcing in food, have access to FNET shared resources, and receive guidance and support from our ethical trade experts.

According to International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates, every day, 6,300 people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases – more than 2.3 million deaths per year. Another 317 million workers sustain non-fatal injuries, particularly in hazardous industrial sectors such as agriculture and construction. The economic burden of poor occupational safety and health practices is estimated at 4 per cent of global GDP each year.

We are happy to welcome Jessica Turner as our new Communications and Membership Manager. Jess will be supporting the Climate and Responsible Recruitment Working Groups, as well as leading on our communications and website.

The Coop hosted 80 attendees at Food Network for Ethical Trade (FNET)  All Members Day on 7th May 2025, which proved to be a productive and creative event. The day featured demonstrations of members artistic skills, updates on FNET working groups, and activities designed to help members connect and collaborate. Additionally, we delved into three key topics identified by our members as area they wanted help to progress: Collaborative Action Required (CAR) issues from SMETA audits, measuring impact, and remediation.

“The Food Network for Ethical Trade (FNET) welcomes this important report on recruitment practices within the tuna industry. We believe meaningful, lasting change on systemic human rights challenges is only possible through collaboration. Supporting this study reflects our commitment to collective action and shared learning. We look forward to working with our members alongside industry bodies, governments, and the private sector to address recruitment risks, and turn these insights into practical action — supporting the advancement of fairer, safer recruitment practices not only in the tuna sector, but across global food supply chains.”

Today marks a special day for FNET team and for Linda especially, as we say goodbye to our colleague and wish her a long and healthy retirement. Linda has been in the food industry for over 40 years across several sectors, different roles and operating in global geographies including Europe, Thailand, Vietnam and India. Linda’s passion for human rights and fairness led her to joining FNET in 2023 where she was able to support our Working Groups in Responsible Recruitment, Empowering Work and Development of Common Due Diligence Tools, as well as lead the new member onboarding and outreach program.

 One of the challenges for suppliers in global supply chains is the lack of alignment between their customers. This creates additional costs, admin burden, complexity, and confusion. At the Food Network for Ethical trade our membership is on a mission to align our approaches, reduce duplication and make it easier for organisations in our supply chains to see our requirements are common with our peers.

Where a serious incident occurs within the supply chain of multiple retailers, brands, and/or suppliers, organisations are encouraged to collaborate to reduce duplication of activity and unnecessary burden for all parties; promote good practice and efficiency in the resolution of issues; provide confidence and assurance to all stakeholders that the matter is being managed in the best interests of those impacted.

Food supply chains can be very complex, and sometimes involve several tiers of production before the final product arrives on the shelf.  It is essential that when companies are delivering their human rights due diligence, to understand the businesses in their specific supply chains, their actual risks, roadblocks and opportunities in order to improve working conditions.   How can companies, especially those far-removed from their supply base do this successfully?

At FNET’s recent All members meeting Danny Miles from Morrisons and Natalie McWilliam from DPS ran an engaging workshop for members to reinforce how engaging the board is crucial to embedding human rights into the business strategy and day to day activities. Here is a flavour of some of the key points which are available in a more detailed member-only guidance document.

Yesterday Tesco’s hosted our largest FNET All members day. It was a fun mixture of presentations, interactive workshops and networking with attendees from a range of job roles including procurement, HR, ethical trade, sustainability and technical functions. Our opening panel focussed on how to pivot from risk to action on human rights due diligence. Rainforest Alliance shared how they have shifted their approach to Assess and Address, developed new worker engagement tools to ‘Expose it, Resolve it, End it’ and using practical examples how the HREDD support programme helps mitigate and remediate human rights abuses. This included Rainforest Alliance and Ergon Associates new report on how to improve Grievance Mechanisms. Twenty Fifty shared some key learnings from their Human Rights work on what is enabling action – broader full value chain approach, senior leader engagement, embedding in procurement, prioritising where to focus and using the data insights to inform due diligence. Princes and Pilgrim UK both shared insights into their recent Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) and how these are informing their broader Human Rights strategy. What was interesting was the alignment in common themes between the presentations and subsequent discussions; Grievances, Procurement practices, Human rights issues beyond core labour rights and in goods/services not for resale.

Grievance mechanisms enable people encountering work-based problems to communicate issues and complaints with managers in order for them to be addressed, considered and resolved. In a recent FNET webinar on gender in international supply chains, FNET members heard about the need to ensure that these channels for communication between workers and management are specifically tailored to pick up issues that relate to gender inequality.  These could range from very serious violations such as harassment and gender-based violence, to other issues around breaks, toilet facilities and workplace safety.   The Oxfam Business Advisory Service has developed a grievance mechanism with a gender lens (originally for Reckitt) that highlights the importance of including women, men and gender-expansive individuals in the development of the policies and how they are being implemented, and the importance of training for managers specifically on gender-based grievances and how to interpret and support people when problems arise.