Norway: Bama distancing itself from Italian suppliers

Bama-Gruppen AS is the largest private distributor of fruit and vegetables in Norway. Bama is active in the wholesale of domestic and foreign fruit and vegetables. The company has five divisions: retail, industry, institutions, flowers and convenience. This concerns supplies to wholesalers NorgesGruppen and Reitangruppen on the retail market.

In recent years the group received negative publicity. The largest newspaper in Norway, Afterposten (Norwegian for Evening Post), regularly reported on the wrongs within the company. The reason for this was the Italian suppliers branch, which supplies tomatoes, oranges, lemons, kiwis, olives, melons, grapefruit and peaches from the south of country, among other things. There were accusations of corruptions, ties to the mafia and the exploitation of labourers.

Ït was awful," remembers executive director Øyvind Brisa. "We had an obdurate system of exploitation and bargaining there. When the collaboration started 14 years ago there was a lot of off the books labour and whitewashing of mafia money. A lot of tomato pickers in Southern Italy were exploited and worked for a pittance." According to Aftenposten, who started an investigation, labourers would work 10 to 15 hours per day, had no rights and were hardly paid. Many were victims of serious abuse. The pickers were referred to as modern day slaves.

Clean sweep
The Norwegian company started to investigate the situation further. The chain turned out to be long, murky and obscure. Representatives and men in the middle had full control over the flow of goods and where they were purchased. Bama never had direct contact with the producers. "We had no control over where the goods were coming from and how they were produced. It was unacceptable."

Although Brisa was warned to leave affairs as they were, Bama has been working on a clean sweep within its ranks in the last few years. "We weren't the only ones who wanted change," said the director. "Other Italian suppliers were frustrated with the way their corrupt colleagues were working. Apart from the degrading conditions for workers, the system of exploitation created unfair competition: because they were scamming the business and paying workers far below the minimum wage, they could supply cheaply."

Rotten apples
Bama started getting rid of the rotten apples. The chain was also made less obscure: middle men were taken out so that Bama had direct contact with producers and suppliers. "We put behavioural codes and norms into place," says Øyvind Brisa. "In the end we got to see schedules and contracts, and we could start purifying the organisation." Meanwhile, Bama has been collaborating closely with local unions and organisations.

The executive director of Bama claims that there has been a clean sweep. "As far as we know, our supply chain in Italy has been cleaned up. There are formal working opportunities, there are employees with contracts and minimum wages, working hours according to the low, and paid overtime. But we don't know everything, it is still a case of keeping an eye out."

International recognition
The 128 business' approach has been recognised by the UN Labour Organisation ILO. Amnesty in Norway has also declared that Bama has done a lot to prevent human rights violations in their company. At the moment Bama is enjoying international recognition for the way that they aim to improve the ethics and conditions on the spot, in Italy too.

"We can never completely guarantee that everything is okay," says Brisa. "But we can guarantee that we can do our very best to ban these damaging practices. If we receive signals that it's wrong, we work on it immediately."

Source: Aftenposten