Sector Dialogue Food Retail and Food Industry
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The food retail and food industry sector plays a key role in people’s daily lives. The sector supplies consumers with food and is one of the largest employers in Germany. As a major importer and exporter of food and agricultural products, it also operates on global markets. Its international supply and value chains may entail significant human rights and environmental risks – ranging from exploitative working conditions and a lack of occupational safety to adverse environmental impacts.
The new Food Sector Dialogue is promoting greater fairness. Consumers want to be sure that the products they buy in their local supermarkets are not based on exploitation. We are therefore working closely with companies, industry associations, trade unions and civil society in pursuit of this goal.
In order to tackle these systemic challenges collectively, various stakeholders have come together at the invitation of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) to form a sector dialogue: companies, business associations, trade unions, non-governmental organisations and the German Institute for Human Rights. In a multi-stakeholder approach, the sector dialogue is developing measures that contribute to fair value creation. The process is supported by a secretariat at GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), commissioned by the BMAS. The work is carried out in compliance with competition and antitrust law.
As implementation support offered by the BMAS, the sector dialogue assists companies in identifying risks early on and fulfilling their due diligence obligations. These are based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (NAP). Requirements under the national Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) also play a role.
Further Information
Members and Dialogue Agreement
The sector dialogue is a multi-stakeholder forum. It is comprised of relevant stakeholders from the food retail and the food industry sector, non-governmental organisations with expertise on human rights risks within the sector, as well as the Federal Government.