Canada's grocery chains stocked with tomato products connected to Chinese forced labour

Canadian consumers who purchase popular tomato pastes, sauces and ketchups may actually be buying products harvested and manufactured by Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities under oppressive working conditions in China, according to a CBC Marketplace investigation.

Marketplace, in collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Project Italy — a non-profit media association — and The Guardian, found some of the world's biggest grocers, including ones here in Canada, are stocked with tomato products that could be tied to forced labour in Xinjiang, a remote area of western China where Uyghurs are subjected to mass detention, surveillance and torture by the Chinese government, in what many countries have labelled a genocide. 

"This is such a moral failure on the side of these companies," said Adrian Zenz, senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Zenz said the "risk of forced labour is endemic and systemic" in China's tomato industry and that "it's high time [these companies] increased their awareness." 

Marketplace identified several major brands — Nestle, Del Monte and Unilever — that purchased tomatoes from Chinese companies in Xinjiang, processed them in intermediary countries like Pakistan, the Philippines and India, and shipped them internationally to be eventually sold at Canadian grocery stores like Walmart and T&T. 

But a Canadian consumer may never know the true origins of that tomato product by looking at the label because regulations don't require a company to disclose the entire geographical makeup of the raw material — only which country it was last processed in. 

"So shocking," said Glenford Jameson, a Toronto lawyer specializing in food regulation, after he was shown CBC's findings. 

Jameson said noting on the label where all the tomatoes come from would help "enable brands to build trust with their customers."

Even the Italian suppliers of store-brand products for Canada's most recognized grocers — Loblaws, Sobeys and Whole Foods — were found to be purchasing tomatoes from the Xinjiang region, although the grocers say no Chinese tomatoes are in their products.

One grocery chain, Whole Foods, has removed its store brand 365 Double Concentrated Tomato Paste off store shelves "out of an abundance of caution" after Marketplace provided information about their supplier.

"It's troubling," said Amélie Nguyen, head of the International Centre for Workers' Solidarity, a Quebec non-governmental organization. "People should know where the products come from, they should be able to make choices about the food products they buy."

She says supermarkets need to investigate their global supply chains and "put pressure on the producers from Xinjiang to treat the workers better."

China is one of the world's biggest producers of tomato paste concentrate — exporting 855,490 tonnes globally last year. That paste is the foundation for finished tomato products seen on many store shelves.

The U.S. government banned tomato products from Xinjiang due to forced labour allegations earlier this year.