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 two of your suppliers - Nomad Foods and Young’s Seafood.
Our research shows that Northseafood Holland and Unibond Seafood International are white fish suppliers to Nomad Foods brands, which include the Birds Eye, Findus and Iglo ranges retailing across Europe. M&S stocks a range of Nomad Foods’ Birds Eye branded products containing white fish, including cod and pollock.
Northseafood Holl…
Is there any chance I could get back to you with answers to your questions tomorrow?
Our team has investigated and no white fish from Qingdao Tianyuan has been used in any M&S own-brand products and we don’t sell branded seafood products from Young’s or Birdseye. I understand that you already have a comment from the British Retail Consortium, which represents retailers.
Thank you for this response and for your clarification. My apologies for the inaccuracy in our enquiry there, we were working on the understanding that the Young's and Birds Eye products available via your online retail partner Ocado represented products stocked by M&S. Our findings indicate shortcomings in seafood traceability systems, including in Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified chains of custody. Do M&S have visibility on the movement of material through the supply chain and assurance on product traceability, batch management, etc at each location handling the product? How does M…
Alongside regular visits from our technical and buying teams, we have third party (often unannounced) food safety and integrity audits right through our supply chain with testing of raw materials for species and authenticity.