Two of the world’s biggest coffee companies, Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, admit that beans from Brazilian plantations using slave labour may have ended up in their coffee because they do not know the names of all the plantations that supply them.

People trafficked to work for little or no pay, and forced to live on rubbish heaps and drink water alongside animals, may have worked on plantations that supply the two companies, according to the media and research centre DanWatch.

The Denmark-based group claims that human rights abuses are rampant across Brazil’s lucrative coffee industry, with hundreds of workers rescued from slavery-like conditions every year.

Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of coffee (pdf), accounting for about one-third of the global market. Yet workers often face debt bondage, non-existent work contracts, exposure to deadly pesticides, lack of protective equipment, and accommodation without doors, mattresses or drinking water, the DanWatch report says. Such working conditions contravene Brazilian and international law, as well as the ethical codes Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts require from their suppliers.

Neither Nestlé nor Jacobs Douwe Egberts, which together account for 39% of the global coffee market, know the names of all the plantations that grow their coffee as they also buy beans from middlemen and exporters in a muddled supply chain, claims DanWatch.

As a result, both companies – whose brands include Nescafé, Nespresso, Dolce Gusto, Coffee-mate and Senseo – admit that while they do not buy beans directly from “blacklisted” plantations where human rights abuses are known to take place, they cannot rule out that slavery-like conditions may exist in their supply chain. Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts told the Guardian they took DanWatch’s allegations seriously and were “very concerned” by the findings.

DanWatch spent seven months investigating the industry, speaking to farmers, experts and trade unions, inspecting plantations with Brazilian authorities, and tracing beans through a complicated supply chain from plantation to middleman to world market.

Nestlé confirmed to DanWatch that it bought coffee from two plantations where workers were rescued from forced labour by Brazilian authorities last summer, and that it has suspended deliveries pending a Brazilian investigation into the matter.

Both Nestlé (pdf) and Jacobs Douwe Egberts (pdf) have ethical codes to protect the human rights of their workers and ban suppliers from using child or forced labour. Under Nestlé guidelines, workers must have access to drinking water and a healthy working environment.

Nestlé said: “We do not tolerate violations of labour rights and have strongly maintained that forced labour has no place in our supply chain. Unfortunately, forced labour is an endemic problem in Brazil and no company sourcing coffee and other ingredients from the country can fully guarantee that it has completely removed forced labour practices or human rights abuses from its supply chain.”



Jacobs Douwe Egberts said it had notified suppliers not to procure coffee from known violators. “We are committed to working with governments, non-governmental organisations, suppliers, farmer cooperatives and the entire coffee supply chain to improve the working conditions for coffee farmers throughout the world. We currently support 15 such programmes in nine countries, including Brazil.”

However, Starbucks and Illy – which also source beans from Brazil – told DanWatch they know the names of all of their suppliers, meaning they can avoid “blacklisted” plantations.

The Brazil labour ministry team makes an assessment on a farm that reportedly kept workers in inhumane conditions, July 2015. Photograph: Lilo Clareto/DanWatch

Nestlé has admitted slave labour in its supply chain of other products, including cat food that sources seafood from Thailand. That the company is now also admitting to forced labour in the coffee industry is a good sign, said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International.

“Finding slavery in the agricultural supply chains of global food giants isn’t surprising, even in Brazil whose government has made considerable efforts to tackle forced labour.

“However, Nestlé’s confirmation of their purchase from the two plantations in question is more positive, indicative perhaps of a growing tendency towards greater transparency in their supply chain and more attention to human rights.”

Brazilian authorities have rescued several hundred coffee workers from plantations over the past few years, said Julie Hjerl Hansen, lead researcher on the DanWatch investigation. In July and August, 128 people – including six children and teenagers – were freed from plantations in Minas Gerais, Brazil’s largest coffee-growing state, by the labour ministry, according to Hansen.

“When the companies don’t even know what plantations they’re buying from, I think the problem is much bigger than what we’ve seen here – it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Hansen said. “The authorities only have the resources to reach out to about half the workers who complain about slavery-like conditions, so that means of all the people who escape, and are able to file a complaint with the ministry of labour, still only half will be helped.”

A Brazilian coffee worker earns about $2 (£1.42) to fill a 60-litre sack of coffee. Less than 2% of the retail price goes to the worker, DanWatch claims. Coffee workers often use toxic pesticides that have been banned in the EU, according to DanWatch, with workers complaining of difficulty breathing, skin rashes and birth defects.