Unilever will today become the first of a series of food company giants to be questioned over a shock new whistleblower memo accusing the industry of “sleepwalking” into a climate disaster.
Campaign group ShareAction will question the fmcg titan over its resilience planning and food supply chain management, on the back of the memo from a group of food industry executives which claimed the food sector was facing a disaster “like no other”.
The memo last month warned the food industry was “woefully underprepared” for eco threats, with resilience based on “wishful thinking” and “false reassurances” to investors, and companies more concerned with short-term economic issues and regulation than long-term threats such as extreme weather, global heating and water scarcity.
Sustainability wake-up call
ShareAction told The Grocer today’s grilling of Unilever, at Westminster’s Queen Elizabeth II Centre, was just the beginning of a concerted campaign calling for the memo to be a “wake-up call”. It will also target the forthcoming AGMs for companies including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Hilton Food Group and Associated British Foods (ABF).
The group, which has received backing previously from the likes of The Health Foundation, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation and Nesta, has become a major thorn in the side of food companies, previously hounding the likes of Unilever, Nestlé and Tesco on the obesity agenda amid calls for companies to do more to improve the health of their products.
Lats month The Grocer revealed it had turned its fire on the out-of-home sector, saying its contribution towards obesity could “no longer be ignored”.
However, the memo to investors has opened up a new front in its campaign, with ShareAction saying the memo had raised “critical questions” that needed to be addressed by shareholders.
“We have prepared a number of questions that are underpinned by the memo,” Alexandra Pinzon, head of biodiversity at ShareAction, told The Grocer.
“We want to ask the company about its approach towards food resilience and supply chain management. We have deliberately chosen those companies that are very important for the UK ecosystem.
“We have chosen large retailers, manufacturers and processors that are big players in the corporate sector – Unilever had to be there and we will be very interested to see how they respond to that.”
The memo claims the UK food industry has “reached a moment of threat to food security like none other we have seen” and warns it is on course for inevitable food shortages, a series of supply chain sourcing collapses, and business failures.
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