Brand owners

Unsustainable agricultural and unfair business practices throughout food and beverage supply chains have harmful impacts on the human rights and livelihoods of individuals, and generate widespread environmental damage, thereby exacerbating levels of poverty and hunger.

Fairfood only approaches food companies who are the brand owners of a specific brand product, and not retailers or producers. Unilever, for instance, is the owner of Magnum ice creams and can be the producer of private label brand ice creams as well. However, we will only approach Unilever for its Magnum ice cream and approach the brand owner, a supermarket, for instance, for its private label brand ice creams. Fairfood chooses to do so because the brand owner not only understands best the benefits of maintaining a good brand reputation, but also decides how a brand product tastes, as well as its sustainability aspects.

Brand owners and the sustainability of products
We are aware of the growing consumer concerns of brand products being associated with ill-treatment of workers and labour exploitations in farms and factories, toxic production, wastes and emissions, soil and water contamination, use of hazardous chemical substances, deforestation, chain bribery and corruption, discrimination and other forms of human rights violations. Being associated to these issues could cost brand owners their reputation as well as result in financial disadvantages.

To ensure that these companies seriously employ sustainable practices especially in their core business, we concentrate on the level of sustainability of their brand products. We believe that companies integrating solid schemes of corporate responsibility throughout their operations will produce more sustainable products. Hence Fairfood is committed to encouraging corporate responsibility and asks companies to make it visible by engaging in concrete sustainability efforts.