Farmworker Rights: Why the People Behind Our Food Matter
Labor Day is about labor. So let's talk about the labor behind lunch.
Before a tomato makes its way into a bowl of soup or a container of salsa, someone has to plant it, tend to it, pick it, pack it, and move it along the food supply chain.
And while we spend a lot of time talking about what is in our food (organic, local, plant-based, non-GMO, you name it), we don't always spend enough time talking about the farm workers who make our food possible.
This Labor Day, we'd like to change that.
Farm Labor Is Essential to Our Food System
Farmworkers play an essential role in American agriculture, particularly in labor-intensive industries like fruit and vegetable production. These are the people doing the physical work that puts fresh produce on grocery store shelves and eventually into things like, ahem, soup and salsa.
But farmworker rights and working conditions haven't always received the same attention as other parts of our food system.
Federal protections cover issues including wages, housing, transportation, and workplace health and safety protections. Migrant and seasonal agricultural workers have additional protections related to wages, housing, and transportation.
But having standards on paper and making sure workers can safely exercise their rights in real life unfortunately are not the same thing.
That's where the Fair Food Program comes in.
What Is the Fair Food Program?
The Fair Food Program is a partnership among farmworkers, growers, and participating food companies designed to protect the people working throughout agricultural supply chains. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization based in Florida, built it.
And there's an important distinction here: Farmworkers aren't just the people being protected by the program. They're part of how the program works.
The Fair Food Program uses a model known as Worker-driven Social Responsibility, or WSR. Participating farms follow a worker-informed Code of Conduct. Workers receive education about their rights and have access to a complaint process that allows them to report problems without retaliation. Independent monitoring and enforcement by the Fair Food Standards Council help make sure those standards are more than promises on a webpage.
In other words, it's not just "Trust us, we're ethical."
Actual systems. Actual accountability. Actual worker voices.
We like that.
How Does the Fair Food Program Work?
The Fair Food Program addresses some pretty fundamental farmworker rights: getting paid for all hours worked, freedom from forced labor and violence, protection against sexual harassment and discrimination, and the ability to raise concerns without fear of retaliation.
The program also includes worker education, audits, complaint investigations, and corrective action when problems are found, as well as a fair food label. Participating buyers also pay a Fair Food Premium that travels through the supply chain and is added to workers' paychecks.
And this isn't a tiny pilot program. The Fair Food Program reports that participating buyers of the Fair Food Code have contributed more than $50 million in Fair Food Premium, while more than 16,000 audit findings have been addressed and more than 3,900 worker complaints have been resolved through the program.
That's what meaningful change in the food system can look like.
What Does Any of This Have to Do With Soupergirl?
Quite a lot, actually. In 2022, Soupergirl launched the first packaged food to carry the Fair Food Program label, beginning with our gazpachos, and expanding to our Tuscan Tomato Basil Soup, and all of our tomato-containing salsas.
We don't think you can call food "good" while ignoring the people responsible for getting it onto our plates.
Ingredients matter.
How they're grown matters.
And how the people growing them are treated matters, too.
This Labor Day, Look Behind the Label
Labor Day may mean one last summer cookout, a long weekend, and the unofficial beginning of soup season. (We don't make the rules.)
But it's also a good reason to remember something that's easy to forget in the grocery aisle:
Food doesn't just come from farms. It comes from people.
People planted it.
People harvested it.
People packed it.
People made it possible for the rest of us to eat.
This Labor Day, and every day, we're proud to support a food system that values them, too.
Fair Food. Really Fresh Salsa.
Turns out supporting farmworker rights can also involve eating a truly excellent amount of salsa.
Our fresh salsas and pico de gallo are Fair Food Certified, made with tomatoes sourced through the Fair Food Program.
You can find them at Whole Foods Market locations across the East Coast.
Head to our Store Locator to find Soupergirl dips at a Whole Foods near you →
