Noble Foods is to review its procedures after a gangmaster it used to hire workers to catch chickens had its licence revoked yesterday following a dawn raid earlier this month.
Last night, The Guardian revealed that the unnamed gangmaster had provided teams of migrant workers to catch chickens on farms that supply eggs through Noble Foods - and other companies - to a number of the nation’s biggest retailers.
Speaking to The Grocer, Noble said it was too early to discuss what changes - for example, increased Noble Foods auditing of gangmasters - might be required in future, but marketing director Steve Horton added: “We have to review that we’ve got everything covered going forward”.
Horton pointed out that Noble only employed gangmasters who were approved by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and by Freedom Food. “We were buying a service and we stopped buying it as soon as we were made aware of this almost two weeks ago,” he said.
Last night’s revocation came after a joint operation earlier this month carried out between the GLA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and Kent Police, which resulted in two arrests.
It is alleged that more than 30 Lithuanian workers were forced to work for shifts of up to 17 hours, forced to sleep in vans and some weeks were not paid at all.
Noble had sought and received confirmation from Freedom Food that it was not under threat of having the Freedom Food status of its eggs revoked, said Horton. Noble would also not be criminally liable as a result of any of the allegations levelled against the gangmaster, he added.
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