Early June, the mushroom sector hit the headlines in an unwanted manner. A raid took place at a mushroom company in the Dutch village of Standdaarbuiten, during which 24 Bulgarians were found who were likely being exploited. At the same time, the employment agency in Bulgaria was investigated. A week later, the Inspectorate SZW published its final report on their investigations of the sector from 2011 to 2014, in which it concluded that the number of violations in the sector has decreased in recent years, but violations were still found in 20% of companies.
Chairman Uli Schnier of Fair Produce took note of the figures, but adds a side note. “At the grower where the raid was conducted on suspicion of misconduct, the same employees were all back to work two days later. So it’s possible that this situation wasn’t as serious as the raid suggested. But the inspection doesn’t give us information on these individual cases. We have taken away the Fair Produce certificate from this grower though, based on information from the inspection.” The 20% also needs further explanation, Schnier says. “These are 20% of the companies investigated by the inspection in the last three years. But of course they focus their investigations on the companies for which they have an indication of possible misconduct. You can’t simply extrapolate that percentage to the sector as a whole. One conclusion of the Intervention Team was that the mutual cooperation and self-regulation through Stichting Fair Produce certification has certainly contributed to a fair mushroom cultivation in the Netherlands.”
Wrongdoings can’t be ruled out
95% of Dutch mushroom growers are now Fair Produce certified. Of the total volume, a somewhat smaller share is certified though, because a number of growers who sell a large volume still haven’t signed up yet. “We carry out audits at least once a year at all certified companies. Fortunately, we find few deviations, and if they are present, it’s often a mistake rather than premeditated fraud or exploitation,” Schnier observes with satisfaction. “Of course things may happen after those audits, but you can never rule out wrongdoings completely. The sector is gradually realizing though that it’s no use exploiting people in order to improve profitability. A much better way would be by establishing a proper marketing organization, for instance. We hope that one day our quality label is no longer needed, but at the moment the situation is not stable enough for that. We are also talking to other sectors about deploying a similar quality label, but there’s less of a need for Fair Produce there, because of the stabilizing effects of a CLA.”
“In the 1990s, this sector was still a profitable business. Because more new companies appeared, and the opportunity arose to hire Eastern Europeans, this gave rise to misconduct, in which foreign workers were paid enough that they wanted to work, but less than legally required here. I don’t know exact percentages, but if 20% of the sector abused this, it'll have had disastrous consequences. In addition to the inhuman aspect of exploitation, there was also an uneven playing field, and the sector ended up in a vicious cycle, with low sales prices. Under pressure from the negative publicity, the sector then said: no more,” Schnier looks back. “Now, with excesses, this old news is often widely repeated by the media. Unfortunately that causes reputational damage, which isn’t good for anyone. But it shows that the quality label has its work cut out for it, for a while yet.”