Impactt Ltd » Food-Industry http://www.impacttlimited.com Making what’s good for workers, work for business. Mon, 14 May 2012 12:54:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Blood, Sweat and Takeaways and tantrums http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/20/blood-sweat-and-takeaways-and-tantrums http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/20/blood-sweat-and-takeaways-and-tantrums#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 16:41:31 +0000 MartinButtle http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/20/blood-sweat-and-takeaways-and-tantrums/ Yesterday’s BBC3 documentary Blood, Sweat and Takeaways plonked six young Brits onto the production line of a tuna processing factory in Indonesia, with predictable consequences.  The Brits can’t cope with the living conditions, the heat, the factory environment, the tasks they are allocated – they vomit, they faint, they cry, they throw each other through plate glass windows but in the end they swear that they will pay more for their tuna at Tesco.  They move from disgust at the lives, latrines and livelihoods of their Indonesian hosts to an appreciation of how much work goes into the food they buy back home.  Looks like the supermarkets should be telling us about where our food comes from and about the lives of the people who produce it. Next week – the prawn industry

]]> http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/20/blood-sweat-and-takeaways-and-tantrums/feed 0 Blood, Sweat and Takeaways http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/15/blood-sweat-and-takeaways http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/15/blood-sweat-and-takeaways#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 14:47:10 +0000 MartinButtle http://www.impacttlimited.com/2009/05/15/blood-sweat-and-takeaways/ Following the success of last year’s Blood Sweat and T-shirts, the reality TV programme which dropped young fashionistas in Indian garment factories, to experience the working conditions behind their clothes, BBC3 have just announced that they will be transferring the concept to the food supply chain.

Starting on Tuesday 19th May 2009, Blood Sweat and Takeaways will examine the working conditions in the food industry in South East Asia. Six British fast food fanatics will live and work alongside workers catching, harvesting and processing food products such as tuna and prawns in Indonesia and rice and chicken in Thailand. The TV programme will examine the human cost of the food industry.

The first programme looks at Indonesia’s tuna industry in Bitung on the island of Sulawesi. In the UK, we consume over a billion tins of tuna each year and Bitung’s canneries supply many British supermarkets and food service companies.  The participants live with tuna workers in basic communities, endure 90-degree heat in the canneries and struggle with the harsh realities of life on a traditional wooden tuna boat in the western Pacific.

Watch a clip of the fast food fanatics visiting a Tuna factory here

We are excited to see that the BBC is exploring working conditions in the food industry as a follow-up to last year’s series. The title suggests that the focus of the programmes will not be solely on supermarkets, but that it will also target the food service industry.  This is an unusual approach as the British supermarkets are usually the target of these types of expose. The issues of course are widespread in the food industry and are not only located in the supply chains of supermarkets. On reflection, last year’s series covered the issues sensitively and intelligently and we hope this year’s season does the same.

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