Cheap seafood costs too much in human suffering

Posted by Willie — 14 December 2015 at 1:09pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Dita Alangkara/Associated Press
Children and teenagers sit together to be registered by officials during a raid on a shrimp shed in Samut Sakhon, Thailand.

About 8 years ago, I had the joy of doing a live news interview from a fish processing factory in Grimsby. Being in a fish processing factory in Grimsby was fine, it was wearing a hair net on national TV that wasn’t.

The story being discussed was seafood brand Young’s decision to ship UK-caught shrimp all the way to Thailand and back, a move that was ‘better’ in terms of CO2 emissions, and cheaper for consumers.

But what price do we pay for cheap seafood?

A new investigation by Associated Press has shed some light on that question, and the answers might make you want to skip a festive prawn cocktail.

Not only did the investigation find people forced to work in horrific conditions, but it also found that children are being exploited too. The reports make shocking reading – entire families working side by side for 16 hours on end, people addressed by numbers, not names, peeling prawns in dirty and inhumane conditions to supply cost-conscious markets in USA and Europe.

Links have been made to some major suppliers, including seafood giant Thai Union, parent company of John West and the target of our international tuna campaign.

These new revelations come on the back of the New York Times and Guardian investigations showing that human rights abuses are part and parcel of the global supply chains of cheap fish and shrimp, and Greenpeace’s own investigation into John West’s tuna traceability.

And global food giant Nestle recently admitted that there was forced labour in its own seafood supply chain.

Back in Grimsby, off camera, I was told that the real driver in shifting prawn processing to Thailand was cost. The whole shebang, catching in UK waters, freezing, shipping to Thailand, processing, sending back to UK, and processing, saved about 5 pence per pack of frozen prawns.

5 whole pence, that consumers apparently wouldn’t pay to keep open processing factories in the UK with much higher costs.

This still happens, frozen peeled wild caught shrimps sold across the UK have been peeled and processed in Thailand. Anecdotally myself and colleagues have even been told that it’s an advantage to have it done by ‘small Asian fingers’. 

As more and more unpleasant information surfaces about global seafood supply chains, the obvious question arises about whether shrimp bought in the UK might well have been processed in the same sort of factories that the AP investigation uncovered. Is your cheap frozen shrimp costing someone else’s humanity?

As long as they are ultimately packaged in the UK they can be labelled as ‘packed in UK’ and consumers might be none the wiser.

It’s up to suppliers and retailers to prove beyond any doubt that they are not implicit in this disgusting, demeaning, indefensible business. And it’s up to consumers to demand better, too.  ‘Cheap’ is relative. 

Tell companies that you won't buy tuna tainted by human rights abuses by clicking here.

About Willie

Hi, I'm Willie, I work with Greenpeace on all things ocean-related

Twitter: @williemackenzie

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