Fast Company: “If you get a burger from McDonald’s, a sandwich from Subway, or a taco from Taco Bell, you can be assured that the tomatoes on top were picked without forced labor or human rights violations; all have partnered with the Fair Food Program. But one notable fast-food chain has not: Wendy’s…”
Like a levee finally giving way to surging flood waters too long denied their path, the COVID-19 pandemic finally, after two, long years, gave way yesterday to hundreds of farmworkers from Immokalee and their Fair Food allies calling on Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program. For more than five hours, a flood of protesters joyously filled the streets of Palm Beach with art, music, and boundless energy. Against a backdrop of a growing human rights crisis in the agricultural industry — including multiple high profile modern-day slavery prosecutions in just the past several months — the marchers posed one simple question of the hamburger giant:
Can Wendy’s guarantee there is no slavery in its supply chain?
Yesterday’s March to End Modern Slavery in the Fields was an epic, 5-mile long protest under the bright Florida sun through the heart of Palm Beach, taking hundreds of protesters on a winding path along streets lined with luxury boutiques and Rolls Royces, and taking their message – their urgent demand for long-overdue supply chain accountability in the food industry – straight to the heart of the one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful communities, home to Wendy’s Board Chair Nelson Peltz, as well as some of Wendy’s largest shareholders.
