Retailer Whole Foods has joined Costco Wholesale in a program that brings together certification in food safety, pesticide management and social compliance.

Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) executive director Peter O'Driscoll told www.freshfruitportal.com Whole Foods' inclusion in the group - which includes a diverse board member structure ranging from NatureSweet Tomatoes to United Farm Workers (UFW) - was an exciting development.

"We certainly hope that it’s going to encourage other retailers with whom we’ve been in discussions to join in," he said.

EFI executive director Peter O'Driscoll

"For many years Costco Wholesale was a major driver of the discussions – they were looking for more transparency, more visibility and more assurance in their supply chain - it's really thanks to their commitment to that process that we were able to draw on many of their suppliers to bring them into the conversation to certify their operations."

He said the initiative started with a focus on U.S. domestic certification, but it became "really obvious really quickly" that it would need international expansion for suppliers to be compliant across the entire supply chain.

"We’ve now issued certificates in Canada and we’ll be issuing more in the coming months, and we’ve also moved into Mexico and actually had quite a bit of expansion in Mexico in berries and greenhouse tomatoes," he said.

"We expect in the near future to be able to move deeper into South America for the same reason; because some of the suppliers in the U.S. are sourcing for Peru, Chile and Argentina.

"Given the fact there is a lot of certification and potentially a lot of redundancy in the audit landscape that growers are facing, we really want to create something of a one-stop shop that would enable a supplier to go to any of their customers and say 'we’ve met the standards across these three areas'."

Adding value through farm labor leadership

One of the EFI's interesting aspects is a focus on training workers on farming operations in leadership, so they can act as monitors of compliance.

"Our certification is predicated on the idea that trained workers are actually going to be monitoring compliance to our standards very closely between audits," O'Driscoll said.

"We go to the farm and we train what we call a leadership team, which is a mix of workers from across the spectrum of the operation through to farm management – typically it’s a group of 15-18 people depending on the size of the farm.

"We train them extensively over the course of 40 hours, typically spread into two or three farm visits, on basic skills, problem solving and conflict resolution skills."

When the worker leadership team feel they've met the standards, they can call for an audit.

"That's when we have a third party adjudicate the audit, but the real principle here is that you’re promoting a form of collaboration between labor and management on the farm, which often times is a bit of a shift in the culture of the operation.

"What that means is if we’re going to ask the workforce to play that additional role of ongoing monitoring and verification of compliance."

The EFI philosophy is that workers ought to be compensated for bringing about that additional level of assurance, and it brings retailers and growers together to negotiate raises in compensation for the workers of its certified farms.

"That's based on the shared belief that worker monitoring and verification is actually creating value for all stakeholders."

Different views, same objective

When asked about immigration reform, a topic that has attracted a great deal of attention ahead of the U.S. elections, O'Driscoll said the EFI did not take a stance on the issue but was unequivocal in its approach to the rights of workers on its certified farms. 

"It’s a hot button issue – we have a very diverse collection of stakeholders on our board. There are plenty of things they agree on and there are plenty of things they don’t agree on," he said.

"So EFI as an entity, we don’t take a specific position on immigration reform proposals – certainly the members of our board do.

"What we do say is that the standards in our program apply to workers regardless of their legal status, whether they are American born or guest workers or undocumented – our position clearly is that anybody working on an EFI-certified produce farm needs to be treated at the level that our standards require."

Retailers driving change

The executive director said while more than 60% of consumers felt either extremely or somewhat concerned about worker welfare, it would likely be supermarkets that drive the change in standards.

"I don’t think we have to wait for a broad consumer revolution that may or may not come, but I think a lot of retailers – especially Costco Wholesale and Whole Foods – see social compliance as part of their sustainability strategy," he said.

"If they want to grow and diversify and make sure they have product well into the future, they have to recognize what is happening in the produce industry; we’re having labor shortages in the United States for example, so having access to a highly motivated labor force is a key sustainability issue for the suppliers whose livelihood depends on producing, and their customers who expect to be able to grow and expand their markets."

Members of the EFI multi-stakeholder board include:

•   Andrew and Williamson Fresh Produce International
•   Bon Appétit Management Company
•   Center for Science in the Public Interest
•   Consumer Federation of America
•   Costco Wholesale Corporation
•   Farmworker Justice
•   Farm Labor Organizing Committee
•   Keystone Fruit Marketing, Inc.
•   NatureSweet Tomatoes
•   Oxfam America
•   Pesticide Action Network North America
•   Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste
•   United Farm Workers

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