I’m contacting Fastnet Fish Ltd. 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 a company engaged in such practices and your supply chain.
Fastnet Fish Ltd.’s supplier Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff Co. Ltd. is a Meijia Group company. The Meijia Group 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 gov…
Firstly, please allow me to thank you for contacting Fastnet Fish in light of your latest investigation!
We approved Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff Co. Ltd. based on them being GFSI certified along with being Sedex members and having a Smeta audit, so we are horrified learning of Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff Co. Ltd. receiving persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under China’s state-imposed Labor transfer program! We last purchased from them in May 2022 and most of it was rejected for poor quality.
Effective immediately, we have removed Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff Co. Ltd. from our approved…
Thank you very much for your engagement with our query and for alerting us to the actions you've taken in response to the information we've provided. Could you go into more detail about the quality issues you identified in your May 2022 order? We'd be interested to hear as well whether those quality issues were a surprise to your company, given the GFSI certification. Please could you also disclose the date(s) of SMETA audit, the SMETA auditors and, if you're able, share any related audit reports or corrective action plans?
We were last in contact with Fastnet Fish in June 2023 regarding our investigation into the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry. Since then, our ongoing investigation has found additional evidence which we wanted to bring to your attention.
We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from Ch…