Correspondence
Email sent to the communications team at El Corte Ingles.
The email said: "We’re contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, specifically North Korean workers in Chinese plants.
We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from China, we’ve found large numbers of North Korean workers at a range of seafood processing plants in Liaoning province, on China’s border with North Korea.
We have information that as recently as October 2023, there were hundreds of North Korean workers at Donggang Haimeng Foodstuff in Liaoning.
According to trade records seen by The Outlaw Ocean Project, Brasmar Comercio de Produtos Alimentares was the consignee for shipments of seafood from Donggang Haimeng in 2021.
Brasmar-branded cod products are sold by Supermercado El Corte Ingles in Portugal.
In light of this, we have the following questions for El Corte Ingles:
- While we understand that you may not be aware of the above issues, we want to ask if El Corte Ingles has any comment to make in response to this email?
- Can you confirm or deny if any seafood from Donggang Haimeng has been supplied to El Corte Ingles, by Brasmar or any other supplier, since December 2019?"
Bernardo Cruza, Head of Sustainability and CSR at El Corte Ingles replied: "We appreciate your research and the information facilitated. We have reached out to supplier Brasmar in Portugal that has provided the following input: Brasmar has full traceability of their food products; Brasmar acknowledges a spot purchase at Donggang Haimeng Foodstuff in 2021, but the order was for their own subsidiary in Brasil.
Brasmar reports that by no means such a product has been available in the portuguese retail market, and therefore has never been on sale at any El Corte Inglés store.
Further to that, we have requested Brasmar to enhance their due diligence management system, to terminate any links (should they still have any link at all) with Donggang Haimeng Foodstuff, and to be extremely vigilant in the ESG assessment and monitoring they perform concerning all products supplied to our Group.
El Corte Inglés has implemented a due diligence management system and a stringent ESG qualification procedure for their suppliers. We conduct thousands of social audits every year to identify potential breaches of our code of conduct related to human and labour rights. We have a zero tolerance policy concerning forced labour cases.
Regarding our private labels, this system is enhanced with monitoring and verification at production facilities, and we have also signed a Global Framework Agreement with Spanish unions CCOO and UGT, as members of IndustriAll Global Union, for a full transparency and joint monitoring of our private labels supply chains worldwide. Brasmar does not supply any private label products to El Corte Inglés.
We understand we have duly responded to your questions."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thanks very much for coming back to us on this so quickly, and for following up with Brasmar to clarify the issues raised by our query to El Corte Inglés"