Correspondence
Email sent to Lyons Seafoods and parent company Labeyrie Fine Foods.
The email said: "I’m writing to you in light of our latest investigation, which concerns abuses in the Chinese squid fishing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between a companies engaged in abuses and your supply chain.
Lyons Seafoods' supplier Shandong Haidu has received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under a state-imposed labor transfer program. The United Nations, human rights organizations and academic experts agree that since 2018, the Chinese government has systematically subjected Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities to forced labor across the country via state-sanctioned employment programs which use coercive methods in worker enrollment, and obstruct freedom to leave employment.
Shandong Haidu is a Chishan Group company. Fishing vessels owned by the group have been observed fishing in North Korean waters in contravention of UN sanctions and fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. The group also owns at least two reefer vessels which have transshipped with dozens of fishing ships tied to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing as well as human rights abuses.
Does Lyons Seafoods or Labeyrie Fine Foods have any comment or statement to make on the record in response to this information? Does Lyons Seafoods source any product from Shandong Haidu for Tesco, Waitrose or Sainsbury’s? Please reply to this email by close of business June 30, 2023."
Labeyrie Fine Foods UK Information department replied with a statement from Lyons:
"Lyons Seafoods Supply Chain Media Query: Chinese Squid Fishing Industry
As a responsible organisation and member of FNET (Food Network of Ethical Trade), we take very seriously the working conditions of any personnel involved in the production of our products. We promote and commit to respect the International Labour Organization (ILO) declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work, as well as the ETI Base code.
To ensure that working conditions meet our aims and objectives we have our Ethical Trading Code of Conduct for Suppliers , our Responsible Sourcing Code of Practice & our Human Rights Due Diligence and Ethical Trading Policy.
These documents address the responsible sourcing standards that we expect to be applied across all our LFF UK suppliers.
We build long term partnerships with all our suppliers who share our values and who are prepared to commit themselves to our code of conduct which is consistent with internationally agreed UN conventions on workers ‘rights and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) base code.
In addition, LFF UK uses a risk assessment developed by the Food Network for Ethical Trade (FNET), a body made up of retailers and suppliers working to tackle supply chain human rights risks. This is carried out at the country level and rates countries from high to low risk.
At LFF UK, we require all first-tier production/manufacturing sites to register on Sedex and complete the Self- Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). Sedex is a secured web-based platform which allows organisations to store information about labour standards within their business and to share this with one or more of their customers.
A valid ethical audit must be shared via the Sedex system for all first-tier productions sites identified as High Risk by FNET (unsurprisingly China is a high-risk country). Thanks to this combination of self- assessments and audits, we can identify labour rights risks using SEDEX RADAR, a dedicated tool built to identify suppliers operating in high-risk environments or with workers more vulnerable to labour exploitation. This process is applied to all suppliers used by LFF UK.
We assess the recruitment dynamic of our suppliers, and do not allow the use of prison labour & disregard any suppliers using labour from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Overfishing and demand for illegal fish leads to demand for illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing known to be linked with labour exploitation. There are well known reported instances in the seafood industry of forced and trafficked labour. This is why we have developed our own LFF IUU tool to assess and identify potential risks in our supply chains.
Japanese Flying Squid was identified as high risk, and therefore became an active participant in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea Japanese Flying Squid FIP and committed to collaborate in a continuous improvement programme. The FIP was suspended due to lack of progress and LFF UK made the difficult decision to stop sourcing from that fishery switching to an alternative squid species. Whilst this new source is still processed in China, the fishing fleet is totally independent, registered and operating in New Zealand."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thank you very much for your statement, we really appreciate your engagement with us on this matter. Could we see the completed Self-Assessment Questionnaires you referred to in your statement? And could we see the audit reports? Can you confirm if either the Self-Assessment Questionnaires or the audit identified Uyghur labor at Shandong Haidu? Please send us your responses to the above queries by end of day, July 3, 2023."
Labeyrie replied: "As you can understand we cannot share self-assessment questionnaires nor audit reports to anyone outside of our value chains. We will reiterate that we have received all necessary assurances confirming that no labour from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is being used by the plant."
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "Thank you for your reply, and that additional note. May I ask if you have independently verified these self-assessment questionnaires and, if so, how you did so? Could you confirm the date of the last SMETA audit conducted, and the name of the auditor?
Public statements from the Chishan Group, the owner of Shandong Haidu, confirm that Uyghurs were first deployed to Shandong Haidu in February 2021. Uyghurs continued to work at Shandong Haidu as recently as December 2022, according to statements from the Chishan Group, the plant’s owner. Our findings indicate that social audits conducted over multiple years at numerous seafood processing plants are consistently failing to detect state-imposed forced labor affecting ethnic minorities from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Does Labeyrie have any comment to make about the effectiveness of SMETA audit in identifying Uyghur forced labor? Does Labeyrie conduct any human rights due diligence in its seafood sourcing? Is Labeyrie subject to the requirements of the 2017 French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law?"
Labeyrie replied: "We are extremely concerned with this and could you kindly share with us a copy of the public statement from the Chishan Group?"
The Outlaw Ocean Project replied: "We cannot give publicly available documents right now for fear that companies will begin pulling theirs down, but we can say they are indeed company documents published by the companies themselves and they clearly corroborate the companies’ engagement with Uyghur labor transfers and the presence of Uyghurs in the processing plants. Could you address the questions we raised in our last email by close of business today: May I ask if you have independently verified these self-assessment questionnaires and, if so, how you did so? Could you confirm the date of the last SMETA audit conducted, and the name of the auditor? Does Labeyrie have any comment to make about the effectiveness of SMETA audit in identifying Uyghur forced labor? Does Labeyrie conduct any human rights due diligence in its seafood sourcing? Is Labeyrie subject to the requirements of the 2017 French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law?"
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed Labeyrie: "We wanted to check back in with you regarding the questions we sent you at the start of this month - would you be able to get the responses to us by close of business Monday (July 31)? To recap, here are the questions: Have you independently verified the self-assessment questionnaires you referred to in previous emails and, if so, how you did so? Could you confirm the date of the last SMETA audit conducted, and the name of the auditor? Does Labeyrie have any comment to make about the effectiveness of SMETA audit in identifying Uyghur forced labor? Does Labeyrie conduct any human rights due diligence in its seafood sourcing? Is Labeyrie subject to the requirements of the 2017 French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law?
Also - product packaging, industry press and retail supplier lists show Lyons supplies seafood products to major UK supermarkets, including product lines containing squid (for example, Sainsbury's Frozen Raw Seafood Selection). Could you please confirm whether Lyons sources squid from Shandong Haidu which is then supplied to major UK supermarkets?
Thanks again for your input on this matter,"
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed: "Further to our emails dated June 28, 2023, and July 28, 2023, our investigation has identified additional links to Xinjiang labor in your company's supply chain.
According to our research, Lyons Seafoods is supplied by Sirena Group. Trade records show that Sirena Group has imported shipments of seafood from a supplier called Yantai Sanko Fisheries Co. Ltd., based in China.
Yantai Sanko Fisheries has received persons from the Xinjiang region of China under a state-imposed labor transfer program since 2019 and until at least April 2023. The United Nations, human rights organizations and academic experts agree that since 2018, the Chinese government has systematically subjected Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities to forced labor across the country via state-sanctioned employment programs which use coercive methods in worker enrollment. The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor.
While we recognize that you may not be aware of these concerns, we wanted to ask you if you have any comment or statement in response to the above information. Please can you confirm or deny if Lyons Seafood has received seafood sourced from Yantai Sanko from Sirena Group?"
Labeyrie's UK Information Team replied: "I can confirm this supply chain has never been used by Lyons Seafoods."