Stop double-down auctions and practices that debase the agribusiness supply chain. Just three months after the launch of the #ASTEnetevi campaign, promoted by Terra!, Flai-CGIL, daSud and the #FilieraSporca campaign, comes the commitment of a good slice of Italian large-scale retail to shift gears.
Stop auctions on food products
The first to commit to the stop of auctions on food products are Federdistribuzione and Conad, which signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture on June 28, 2017, a Code of Ethics for the purchase of agricultural and agri-food products.
The auctions in question are behind the below-cost sales offered in supermarkets, and represent one of the most serious threats to workers’ rights and the survival of the first links in the supply chain: farmers and first producers.
The mechanism is as follows. The large-scale retailer convenes its suppliers on an online platform, asking them to bid for a large quantity of a certain product. Based on the lowest bid received, he then convenes a second auction with the same suppliers to obtain a further price reduction. An unsustainable technique.
The Code of Ethics for Transparency
In addition to renouncing vexatious electronic auctions, the Code of Ethics commits signatories to combat illegal labor and caporalism by requiring suppliers to register with the Quality Agricultural Labor Network.
Large-scale retail operators who sign up to the Code of Ethics are registered on the ministry’s website and can communicate their commitment either by using a recognition mark or by adopting narrative labels, QR codes, and apps that tell the story of the product from field to shelf. This will make it easier for consumers to recognize large-scale retail brands committed to an increasingly ethical supply chain.
The appeal to the Italian retail industry
The hope now is that the first signatories to the protocol will be followed by other players in the Italian retail industry. The promoters of the #ASTEnetevi campaign make an appeal to “other major players such as Coop Italia(already quite virtuous on issues of legality, ed.), Eurospin and Lidl” so that they “sign this protocol as soon as possible, which represents a first step toward rebalancing supply chain relations, which at the moment are too unbalanced in favor of distribution, penalize the production sector and contribute to creating fertile ground for the development of unacceptable phenomena, such as exploitation and caporalato.”
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".