Correspondence
Email sent to the U.S. Department of Defense regarding procurement contracts awarded to Sysco.
The email said: "I’m contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, and a link we’ve discovered between companies engaged in such practices and procurement contracts awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Since 2018, the Department of Defense has awarded 6,936 contracts to Sysco through the funding agency Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support. The total value of these contracts is over $140 million. The contracts awarded include seafood products such as pollock and cod. According to Sysco’s website, it sells multiple High Liner seafood products, including pollock and cod. High Liner Foods has imported pollock, cod and other fish products from Yantai Sanko Fisheries since 2019, according to U.S. trade data.
Additionally, up until at least October 2022, according to Sysco’s website, it sold multiple Ruggiero Seafood squid brands. Ruggiero Seafood has imported squid from Chishan Group processors, Shandong Haidu and Rongcheng Haibo. Yantai Sanko, Shandong Haidu and Rongcheng Haibo have all 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.
The U.S. has prohibited the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor. In addition to earlier legislation restricting goods made from forced labor, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law in December 2021, creates a presumption that goods produced by Uyghurs transferred out of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region via ‘labor-transfer’ programs are the product of forced labor and cannot be imported to the United States unless an importer can provide clear evidence the imports were produced without the use of forced labor.
Does the Department of Defense have any comment or statement to make in light of the above information? Please respond to this email by close of business, July 17, 2023."