Correspondence
Email to Piggly Wiggly's parent company, C&S Wholesale Grocers.
The email said: "I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s food processing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between companies engaged in such practices and one of the suppliers to C&S Wholesale Grocers' brand Piggly Wiggly - High Liner Foods. Piggly Wiggly stocks a range of High Liner white fish products.
High Liner has imported shipments of cod, pollock, haddock, yellowfin sole, ocean perch and flounder from Yantai Sanko Fisheries Co. Ltd., a seafood processor based in China. Yantai Sanko Fisheries Co. Ltd. has received persons from the Xinjiang region of China under a government labor transfer program since 2019 and until at least April 2023. High Liner has also imported shipments of yellowfin sole from Yantai Longwin Foods Co. Ltd. Yantai Longwin is linked to Yantai Sanko through corporate ownership. Our investigation has also found Uyghurs working at Yantai Longwin, since August 2020 and until as recently as March 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 and obstruct freedom to terminate employment. The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor.
Could you confirm whether white fish sourced from Yantai Sanko or Yantai Longwin has been used in any white fish products supplied by High Liner and sold by Piggly Wiggly since 2019? Please reply to this email by close of business August 31, 2023."