Hazelnuts

Our hazelnuts supply chain

The bulk of our hazelnut supply comes from the western and eastern parts of the Black Sea region of Turkey, the world’s largest hazelnut producer. We also source from Spain and Italy. We do not source directly from farms but from a small number of suppliers, who obtain the hazelnuts through a chain of intermediaries.

Our approach to sourcing hazelnuts sustainably

We carry out assessments to understand the challenges in our supply chains in Turkey, Italy and Spain. In Turkey, assessments have been carried out since 2012 through our partners the Fair Labor Association (FLA), while in Spain and Italy, Verité began carrying out assessments for us in 2018.

The most widespread and serious challenges in the hazelnut supply chain in Turkey are around safe and healthy living and working conditions for laborers, especially the many temporary migrant workers employed during the harvest period, and the existence of child labor. In the summer, tens of thousands of seasonal migrant workers, mostly from the southeast region of Turkey, travel across the country to harvest hazelnuts for 30–45 days before moving to other crops like fruits, spices and potatoes. Children often accompany their parents on this journey. With no access to school or childcare, they may end up working alongside their parents in the hazelnut gardens. We work closely with the FLA, our suppliers and the Turkish government to address these issues.

Transparency

In order to drive industry-wide transparency, we have published the list of our hazelnut Tier 1 suppliers (pdf, 0.3Mb) in our supply chain and the list of their cracking sites, along with the country of origin

Implementing social impact assessments

Since 2011, Nestlé has been working with the FLA to assess labor practices in the Turkish hazelnut sector. Working with our suppliers Olam, Balsu and Yavuz, the Turkish government and local and international NGOs, we have implemented remedial activities to bring systemic improvements in labor standards in the sector.

We have now shifted our approach from audits, which told us little about the effect of interventions, to a social impact assessment of our actions and activities around training, renovations and summer schools for children.

The FLA’s study showed us that our efforts targeting child labor have proved fruitful. In particular, villages with summer schools have seen a fall in the number of children engaged in child labor compared to those without such interventions. Training on labor rights and responsible recruitment raised awareness within the labor community and led to certification of labor brokers, as well as the application of contracts between farmers, workers and labor brokers, a previously unknown practice for the traditionally informal agricultural sector.

We have followed the FLA report’s recommendations to train workers in their places of origin during the quieter months, when participants have more time and energy, and in the harvest areas where workers need guidance on issues such as wages, working hours and occupational health and safety. This recommendation helped us to reach more workers and led to considerable increases in the numbers of contracts and certifications of labor brokers in 2019. 
We carried out several remedial actions in Turkey in 2019, including:

• Training 5089 farmers, workers, traders and labor brokers on workers’ rights and child labor.
• 2008 children benefiting from our activities to address child labor in hazelnut orchards.
• Distributing 3098 copies of our Responsible Sourcing Standard (pdf, 2.4Mb) to suppliers, traders, farmers, labor brokers and workers.
• Agreeing formal contracts before harvest with 366 workers, farmers and labor brokers.
• 277 workers benefiting from improved accommodation facilities.
• 413 workers benefiting from improved water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions.
• 6856 farmers receiving personal protective equipment kits, including first aid and sanitary kits, hats, gloves, masks, t-shirts and belt bags.

Protecting children and workers

Raising awareness of workers’ rights in Turkey

Lack of awareness of workers’ rights is a serious issue in our hazelnut supply chain. Balsu, one of our key hazelnut suppliers in Turkey, is working with local authorities, universities, the Turkish Employment Agency and the Agriculture Ministry to provide essential training to workers and labor contractors.

The program takes participants through key aspects of living conditions workers are entitled to, such as shelter, hygiene, sanitation and nutrition. Working conditions are also covered, with participants trained on their rights around wages, working hours, contracts, social security, and grievance and support procedures. There is a particular focus on preventing child labor in the hazelnut harvest and on the implementation of contracts for workers in which their rights are clearly stated.

Following this, our supplier Olam Progida has developed legal contracts between farm owners, labor contractors and seasonal migrant workers. The contracts mark a transformational change in the hazelnut supply chain, by improving the working conditions of migrant workers and protecting their labor rights, which provide a significant challenge in Turkey. Olam is implementing this project in cooperation with Turkey’s Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services. Once the process is completed, workers’ employment rights will be protected by registered legal contracts from the National Employment Agency.

The stipulation for workers’ dates of birth to be provided during the registration process will also help to eliminate child labor, as having contracts in place will enable potential underage workers to be identified.

In 2019, contracts were signed between 611 workers, 57 farmers and 12 labor contractors in Nestlé’s supply chain.

Keeping children engaged with summer schools

The children of seasonal agricultural workers often suffer academically, especially during the busy harvest. Our summer schools are designed to help eliminate child labor from the hazelnut supply chain in Turkey, in line with the government’s National Employment Strategy (2014–2023).

In the village of Cumayeri, for example, there was no safe space where children could learn and play, increasing the risk of them working on hazelnut farms. To tackle this, our supplier Olam Progida set up a project to provide robotic coding training. The project provides a safe space in which children can learn valuable skills, especially in new technology like coding, that could help them access opportunities in the future.

Launched in 2019, the training attracted 25 children, who were taught about coding and were able to develop their analytical, creative and problem-solving skills.

Since 2012, we have worked with the International Labour Organization and the Turkish Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services on the summer schools project. Initially launched in Ordu province, in the eastern Black Sea region, the project has since expanded. Together with our suppliers Balsu, Olam and Yavuz, we financed 11 such centers and saw 693 children attend school instead of working in the hazelnut gardens during the 2019 harvest.

As well as giving the children much-needed education, our summer schools raise awareness about child labor among teachers and local villagers.

Developing women’s skills

The Strong Women, Strong Agriculture project provides capacity-building training to women in our hazelnut supply chain. 

In general, there is a lack of awareness of social and agricultural issues among people in the hazelnut production process, especially around child labor and employment relations. There is also a need to help people boost their income. Strong Women, Strong Agriculture aims to emphasize the important role women play in the supply chain and provide them with training and entrepreneurship skills, empowering them to create new economic opportunities.

In 2019, the project was extended to Hendek, Sakarya, where we reached 50 women in two groups at the Balsu factory and in Hendek Çamlıca villages. Over six weeks, the participants received training in good social and agriculture practices, quality, health and safety, and protecting the environment, with a certificate on completion. A number of women have already begun new income-earning activities, such as mushroom farming.

The project is run in by our supplier Balsu in cooperation with the Hendek District Governorate, Hendek District Directorate of Agriculture and the Young Lives Foundation, with a support grant from East Marmara Development Agency. In all, it has reached 103 women since its launch in 2018.

Tackling gender stereotypes while preventing child labor

Gender stereotypes are common among workers in our hazelnut supply chain. However, when roles and responsibilities are guided by gender, rather than by skill and ambition, girls immediately find themselves disadvantaged in education and training.

Our supplier Olam set up a project to provide a neutral environment in which girls could learn and play alongside boys, participating in traditionally male-dominated activities such as football, drama and chess. The aim was to break down gender stereotypes, as well as offering the children a safe space to prevent them from working on farms during the harvest. During 2019, 39 children participated, and the project received praise from both children and their parents.

Providing hygienic accommodation for workers

With many hazelnut harvest workers being seasonal migrants, there is a need to ensure they have adequate living conditions. As part of our responsible hazelnut sourcing program with our Tier 1 supplier Yavuz Gida, we have improved living conditions for workers.

In partnership with local village heads, we renovated two inactive buildings to act as living areas during the harvest and as social recreation centers for the rest of the year. In Resuller, Sakarya, in the western Black Sea region, the renovated building now provides accommodation for 40 workers, with new bathrooms and a kitchen fitted and a hot water supply installed. In Gülyalı, Ordu, in the eastern Black Sea region, we have renovated an old school to provide accommodation for 90 workers, while the ground floor will also provide summer school activities for children.

In addition, 5% of the money the buildings generate when not in use as accommodation will go toward a fund to help eliminate child labor.

Collaborating for maximum impact

In 2019, we began participating in a project entitled Harvesting the Future – Responsible Recruitment of Seasonal Migrant Agriculture Workers in Turkey. The project, which will run for 18 months, is being led by the Fair Labor Agricultural Alliance, a collaborative platform initiated by the FLA. Activities will take place in cooperation with the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform and other agricultural suppliers in Turkey, as well as their buyers.

Harvesting the Future is a multi-partner project designed to improve recruitment and employment practices for seasonal migrant workers in Turkey’s agriculture sector. It is designed to identify practical and sustainable solutions that benefit workers and that can be implemented by agriculture companies, labor contractors and farm owners.

Participants have agreed to jointly implement the project with the following components:

• Map 600 labor brokers working in the supply chains of the identified commodities.
• Equip supply chain actors with social compliance management tools at the upstream supply chain level in the agriculture sector, including mapping the labor brokers and workers’ profiles in their respective commodities’ supply chains.
• Profile the labor brokers; map the labor movement, worker profiles and labor force in various supply chains; and create a database to identify the shared labor force (and responsible labor brokers) among the various companies.
• Develop potential solutions with relevant stakeholders to support fair recruitment practices in seasonal migratory agriculture.
• Stakeholder engagement and advocacy to discuss systemic sectoral reforms.