Like many others working in the fresh produce trade, I was filled with disappointment watching the images of Channel 4’s investigation into Mansfields’ Nickle Farm. It made for uncomfortable viewing in the extreme, and it raises a lot of questions about the conditions in which British-grown fruit is brought to market.
One of the most important of these is that of whether this is the tip of the iceberg. Are migrant workers across the land, in fact, living in squalor and working in an almost slave-like environment to produce the fresh food we eat?
My feeling is that this case is the exception rather than the rule, and that is not based on sentimentality or wishful thinking but on cold, hard market forces. The fact is that when the government abolished the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Scheme (SAWS) two years ago, growers claimed that they would not be able to source enough labour because Romanians and Bulgarians would now want to do more comfortable jobs that did not involve freezing fields or backbreaking hours on a production line.
One of the upsides of that controversial decision - one that is still hotly debated today - was that it forced standards upwards in terms of migrant worker care. With companies now needing to rely more than ever on a returning labour force that would want to come back year after year, it has become essential to provide habitable accommodation and decent working conditions for staff.
Many of the biggest growers have passed audits specifically in relation to their handling of staff, and it has shot up the agenda like never before. One supermarket buyer told me today that he has been on dozens of unannounced audits in his time, but never came across anything of the typedepicted in the Channel 4 investigation.
It is highly unlikely that migrants living in those kind of conditions would be clamouring to return. Quite simply, companies that don’t look after their staff will struggle to get workers in this labour-poor market, and that means crop losses and the inability to meet contracts. A road to ruin, in other words.
Mansfields said the investigation was a ‘distortion’ of reality, and it faces a difficult few days explaining to customers and the public that this kind of thing is not representative of its business. As an industry leader, it is vital it makes a clear statement of intent to show that no such thing will be allowed to happen again on any of its sites.
This case in isolation is unlikely to cause a shift in buying patterns. I don’t believe large numbers of consumers will suddenly rush out and start checking the labels on apples to make sure they were not grown at Nickle Farm.
But it is a warning shot. Managers need to be on top of what is happening on their farms and the ignorance line is not a defence. I imagine that across the country, both growers and supermarkets will now be making it a priority to ensure pickers and packers are living in proper conditions, and making changes if anything is below par to avoid being the next caught in the headlights. The chances of similar cases will surely reduce as a result.
If there is a silver lining to this week’s investigation, that has to be it.
