Coke announces obesity fight – what about helping their own hungry farmers?

Oxfam for the first time ranks Coca Cola and 9 other food and beverage giants to reveal the unacceptably high social and environmental costs in their supply chains

The announcement by Coca Cola to pour money into tackling obesity in areas where their products are sold has sparked debate about whether a giant soft drink company can honestly tackle obesity while continuing to grow sales. Yet, while consumers debate the cost of a bottle of small or large sized coke - and its sugar content – millions of small holder farmers that make the ingredients in these famous brands, go hungry.

Barry Coates, Oxfam New Zealand Executive Director said, “Over the past century, powerful food and beverage companies have enjoyed unprecedented commercial success. But these companies have grown prosperous while the millions of smallholder farmers and communities in the developing world who supply the land, labour and water needed for their products face increased hardship.

“Now, a rapidly changing environment, affected communities and an increasingly savvy consumer base are pushing the industry to rethink business as usual. If Coca Cola is to live up to its social responsibility, this rethink needs to be broader than the amount of sugar in a bottle of Coke.”

Oxfam spent 18 months critically analysing the policies of the top ten food and beverage companies, including Coca Cola - that together make US $1 billion a day. The international development agency checked how well the Top 10 did on their treatment of small holder farmers, women, land, water, climate change, and transparency and ranked them on a scorecard that enables consumers to see how well they rate. No company emerges with a good overall score. Across the board all ten companies need to do much more.

“Coke scores higher on policies related to worker’s rights, climate change, transparency and the treatment of women, but is left trailing the top companies due to poor performance on land rights and support for farmers,” Coates said. “One in three of us depend on food produced by small-scale farmers, but millions of these farmers are struggling just to feed themselves. Coca-Cola hasn’t joined industry efforts to ensure small-scale farmers earn a decent living. Coca-Cola needs to get off the side-lines and stand up for small-scale farmers.”

As an example of how consumers can shift big business to change, in the first 2 months of launching Behind the Brands, Oxfam’s specific recommendations for improving the conditions and rights for women cocoa farmers were taken up by Nestle, Mars and Mondelez (formerly Kraft) that together control 30% of global cocoa supply.

In addition to the Behind the Brands initiative, Oxfam New Zealand has been taking action on food and beverage impacts in the New Zealand market. In May this year Dole NZ agreed to discontinue use of its self-appointed “Ethical Choice” label and withdraw its application to trademark the term on the very same day that Oxfam released a report by Philippines researchers that highlighted serious labour and environmental issues in Philippine banana plantations.

“It’s time the huge companies that control most of the food and beverage sector take more responsibility for their immense influence on poor people’s lives,” said Coates. “Eighty per cent of the world’s hungry people work in food production and these companies employ millions of people in developing countries to grow their ingredients. They control hundreds of the world’s most popular brands and have the economic, social and political clout to make a real and lasting difference to the world’s hungry.”

“No brand is too big to listen to its customers,” said Coates. “If enough people urge the big food companies to do what is right, they have no choice but to listen. By contacting companies on Twitter and Facebook, or signing a petition to their CEO, consumers can do their part to help bring lasting change to our broken food system by showing companies their customers expect them to operate responsibly.”

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