NGOs from around the world issue an open letter to the snack food giant, demanding reforms of its controversial palm oil sourcing
CONTACT: Emma Rae Lierley, Emma@ran.org, 425.2811989
San Francisco, CA – A broad coalition of over forty NGOs called out the snack food giant PepsiCo in an open letter today, demanding the company reform its controversial palm oil sourcing. The international coalition––including environmental, labor rights and human rights organizations like Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, SumOfUs, Child Labor Coalition, International Labor Rights Forum, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Friends of the Earth US, Sumatran Orangutan Society and more––highlight PepsiCo’s problematic joint venture partnership with Indonesian food manufacturer and palm oil company Indofood as of particular concern.
“PepsiCo has attempted to sideline this issue for over four years,” said Chelsea Matthews, a campaigner with Rainforest Action Network (RAN). “It’s heartening to see this diverse coalition of organizations coming together to reform PepsiCo’s palm oil supply chain.”
“PepsiCo has major influence over the palm oil market, and could really lead by example in that space,” Matthews continued. “Instead, it has repeatedly attempted to spin misleading information and take half-steps. It has largely ignored the very real issues of deforestation, labor abuses and human rights abuses in its palm oil supply chain, and that needs to stop now.”
PepsiCo has been the target of Rainforest Action Network’s (RAN) Snack Food 20 campaign since 2013. Through a series of reports, PepsiCo has been repeatedly exposed as continuing its business partnership with Indofood without consequence despite documented child labor, worker exploitation and land rights abuses on its plantations, as well as sourcing from companies driving deforestation in the critically important Leuser Ecosystem.
“It is with the utmost urgency that we call on PepsiCo to address the egregious impacts of its palm oil supply chain and business partnerships in Indonesia and other sourcing regions including Malaysia and Latin America in order to improve land and forest governance, respect of human and worker rights, and enforce responsible palm oil development globally,” the signatories state in the open letter to PepsiCo.
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For the open letter sent to PepsiCo, see here.
For RAN’s most recent report on PepsiCo, “Profits Over People and Planet, Not Performance with Purpose: Exposing PepsiCo’s Real Agenda”, see here.
