A Thai seafood producer considered among the world’s largest took proactive steps today in the wake of yesterday’s report on slavery in its supply chain by the Associated Press.
Thai Union Frozen Products said it welcomed the findings of the yearlong investigation connecting the dots from slavery at sea to seafood sold around the world and immediately terminated its relationship with an unspecified supplier named in the AP report.
“Thai Union embraces AP’s finding,” the company announced, referring to the use of slave labor as “utterly unacceptable. Consumers can rest assured that our current products are not tainted with the alleged trade supplier. This is to prove that Thai Union takes the issue of human rights violation extremely seriously.”
From AP:
The AP interviewed dozens of current and former slaves who were working on trawlers in and around Benjina, a remote island village in Indonesia. Many said they were tricked, kidnapped or sold. They described working up to 22 hours a day, beatings and, in the worst cases, death at sea. AP journalists followed a large shipment of slave-caught seafood by satellite to a Thai port town, where trucks picked up the fish and redistributed it to dozens of companies and the country’s largest fish market.
Thai Union is likely sensitive to scrutiny as it seeks to acquire US brand Chicken of the Sea for a reported THB50 billion. It also makes some of the top-selling pet food in the world such as Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams.
Related:
Your seafood comes from slaves, AP confirms
Thai Union buys Bumble Bee Seafoods for 49.6B
US slams Thailand for human trafficking
If you eat shrimp, you finance slavery and torture, report shows
