Correspondence
Email sent to the press office of Marks and Spencer.
The email said that two suppliers of M&S - Nomad Foods and Young’s Seafood - are supplied seafood products by companies in China that have recieved persons from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Northseafood Holland and Unibond Seafood International are white fish suppliers to Nomad Foods brands, which include the Birds Eye, Findus and Iglo ranges retailing across Europe. M&S stocks a range of Nomad Foods’ Birds Eye branded products containing white fish, including cod and pollock. Northseafood Holland has imported shipments of white fish, including pollock, from the processor, Yantai Sanko Fisheries Co. Ltd., based in China. Yantai Sanko Fisheries Co. Ltd. has received persons from the Xinjiang region of China under a government labor transfer program since 2019 and until at least April 2023. Unibond Seafood International is a white fish supplier to Young’s Seafood, which supplies M&S with a range of Young’s branded products containing white fish. Unibond Seafood has imported shipments of white fish, including cod and pollock, from Qingdao Tianyuan Aquatic Foodstuffs Co. Ltd., a supplier based in China. Qingdao Tianyuan has also received persons transferred by the Chinese government from the Xinjiang region since 2020 and until at least May 2023. The email asked for comment on whether white fish sourced from these Chinse plants had ended up in any of the branded white fish products under Nomad Foods or Young’s Seafood brands or in any of M&S's own branded seafood.
Marks and Spencer replied: "Our team has investigated and no white fish from Qingdao Tianyuan has been used in any M&S own-brand products and we don’t sell branded seafood products from Young’s or Birdseye. I understand that you already have a comment from the British Retail Consortium, which represents retailers."
The Outlaw Ocean Project responded: Thank you for this response and for your clarification. My apologies for the inaccuracy in our enquiry there, we were working on the understanding that the Young's and Birds Eye products available via your online retail partner Ocado represented products stocked by M&S. Our findings indicate shortcomings in seafood traceability systems, including in Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified chains of custody. Do M&S have visibility on the movement of material through the supply chain and assurance on product traceability, batch management, etc at each location handling the product? How does M&S verify that your white fish traceability is fit for purpose and provides robust assurance that material from Qingdao Tianyuan hasn't entered your own-brand product supply?
Allan Ross at Marks and Spencer replied to say that "alongside regular visits from our technical and buying teams, we have third party (often unannounced) food safety and integrity audits right through our supply chain with testing of raw materials for species and authenticity."
The Outlaw Ocean Project asked if Marks and Spencer could clarify which food traceability standard(s) is used to audit sites supplying M&S own-brand fish via Young's, including Qingdao Tianyuan, and when was the last time an M&S technical or buying team visited Qingdao Tianyuan?