Finland’s biggest retail groups say they are studying a report by the NGO Finnwatch alleging abuses at a juice factory in Thailand that supplies many Finnish stores.
On 28 January 2014 the corporate-responsibility NGO Finnwatch issued a report following up on its earlier revelations of problems in the production of fruit juice sold by the main Finnish retailers. Taking the production of pineapple juice in Thailand as an example, Finnwatch reports evidence of forced labour and human trafficking.
The latest allegations concern a Thai juice factory named by Yle, which supplies juice to the Finnish companies SOK (the S-Group), Kesko (which owns the K stores) and Tuko Logistics, which is partly owned by Stockmann. They operate most of the grocery stores in the country.
Finnwatch believes that the Thai company has confiscated workers’ passports, violently punished migrant labourers and kept them in conditions resembling wage slavery.
The report is a follow-up to one published a year ago revealing problems with production of items for Finnish retailers’ low-cost private-label brands. The latest report harshly criticises the S-Group and Kesko for the working conditions under which their pineapple juice and tuna fish is processed.
Source: Yle
