Correspondence
Email sent to the sustainability team at Nissui Corporation.
The email said that The Outlaw Ocean Project had identified links between Chinese companies engaged in forced labor and illegal fishing and several of Nissui's subsidiaries. Nissui Corporation’s French subsidiary, Cité Marine, has imported large volumes of pollock and cod from Qingdao Tianyuan Aquatic Foodstuff Co. Ltd. since the Chinese plant is known to have first started using Xinjiang labor in 2018. The research found evidence of the presence of Uyghur workers at Qingdao Tianyuan as recently as May 2023. Cité Marine has also imported white fish from Qingdao Lian Yang Aquatic Product Co. Ltd., another Chinese seafood processor linked to Qingdao Tianyuan through corporate ownership. The investigation has also found Uyghurs working at Qingdao Lian Yang as recently as 2023. Nissui’s Danish subsidiary, J.P. Klausen, has also imported white fish from Qingdao Tianyuan and Qingdao Lian Yang. OOP research indicates that J.P. Klausen has supplied white fish to McDonald’s, and that Nissui Corporations in the U.S. and Japan are principal seafood suppliers to McDonald’s. Another subsidiary of Nissui, Nordic Seafood, has also imported white fish from Qingdao Tianyuan as well as squid from the Chinese processors Rizhao Jiayuan Foodstuff Co. Ltd. and Rongcheng Xinhui Aquatic Products Co. Ltd. Rizhao Jiayan has received Xinjiang labor, including Uyghurs, from the government labor transfer program since 2019 and until at least October 2022. Rongcheng Xinhui has received squid from a Chinese squid jigger called the Zhen Fa 7. In a seven-month period, one Zhen Fa 7 crew member died and a second was disembarked for emergency medical treatment after suffering serious mistreatment and abuse while on board the vessel.
The reporting also documents multiple indicators of forced labor among crew onboard the vessel: recruitment linked to debt, deceptive recruitment, enforced isolation, degrading living conditions, physical violence, wage withholding, the retention of personal identity documents and strong financial penalties for leaving employment. Additionally, Nordic Seafood has imported salmon from Dalian Rich Enterprise Group Co. Ltd. Dalian Rich signed a distribution agreement with a Xinjiang aquaculture company called Xinjiang Tianyun Organic Agriculture in September 2022. Finally, Nordic Seafood in the U.K. has received squid from the state-owned Zhoushan Marine Fisheries Corporation as recently as March 2023. Our research indicates that at least nine vessels owned by the company fished in Russian waters between July 2022 and February 2023, and three vessels owned by the company have been the subject of complaints from at least six former crewmembers that matched International Labor Organisation forced labor indicators including: abuse of vulnerability, deception, withholding of wages, and abusive working and living conditions. Several other vessels have a history of activity indicating possible illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing infractions, including broadcasting multiple MMSI numbers and AIS disabling on the borders of exclusive economic zones in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The email also asked if Nissui can confirm that no seafood from Qingdao Tianyuan, Qingdao Lian Yang or any other Chinese seafood processing facility using Uyghur forced labor, has been supplied to McDonald’s operations in the U.S., Japan or elsewhere, whether Nissui is confident Nordic Seafood has not received any salmon from Dalian Rich that has been handled, processed, or packaged by Uyghur or other ethnic minority laborers from the Xinjiang province, whether they can confirm Nordic Seafood has supplied squid source from Zhoushan Marine, Rongcheng Xinhui or Rizhao Jiayuan to any of the following companies: K Group, ICEA, Garant and Martin and Severa, and whether they have any other comment or clarification to make with regards to our findings.