Correspondence
Email sent to a contact address for the University Medical Center Utrecht.
The email said: "We are contacting you regarding our latest investigation, which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry. According to the EU tenders database, Bidfood won a €3.2m contract in 2023 to supply food to the University Medical Center in Utrecht, with the contract including the provision of frozen fish. Our research has found that Bidfood sells at least four Kramers’ Seafood products that contain pollock. Kramers’ Seafood imported at least 12 shipments of pollock from a Chinese processing plant called Qingdao Tianyuan in 2022. Kramers’ Seafood also imported at least nine shipments of pollock nuggets from Qingdao Lian Yang Aquatic Products in 2022, a company linked to Qingdao Tianyuan through corporate ownership. Qingdao Tianyuan Aquatic Products has received persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China under the state-imposed labor transfer program since 2020 and until at least May 2023. Qingdao Lian Yang has received persons transferred from Xinjiang since April 2022 and as recently as 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 the University Medical Center in Utrecht might not be aware of the above issues, we wish to ask if fish sourced from Qingdao Tianyuan or Qingdao Lian Yang been served at the University Medical Center in Utrecht in 2023?"