Major human rights violations are being committed at a vast Del Monte pineapple farm in Kenya where there have been numerous deaths and violence, according to the conclusions of an unpublished report.
The findings, seen by the Guardian, are highly critical of Del Monte Kenya and include claims that the company’s employees are working with a cartel of thieves, providing them with intelligence. The report says the farm has serious problems with organised pineapple theft, losing crops to gangs at a large scale.
British supermarkets that have been supplied by the farm were given a summary of the report conducted by the social auditor Partner Africa last month. Since then, police have been investigating another four deaths of men whose bodies were found in a river over Christmas after they went to the farm near Thika to steal pineapples.
In response to the most recent deaths, Del Monte said it was “cooperating with Kenyan authorities as they continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the four bodies retrieved from the Thika River”. The company said: “Footage from when the men attempted to steal pineapple shows no foul play on Del Monte’s part.”
Some supermarkets told the Guardian they had called on Del Monte to conduct a robust investigation into the latest deaths. Two said they had withdrawn the farm’s products from their shelves.
The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism first published allegations of violence and deaths at the hands of security guards at the Kenyan farm last summer.
Del Monte commissioned a human rights impact assessment of its Kenyan operations shortly afterwards. The report describes an intense conflict between loosely organised groups of pineapple thieves and Del Monte security staff, causing casualties on both sides, including injuries and death. It concludes that the Kenyan farm is causing major human rights harms across multiple areas to its staff and those living in communities surrounding it.
It also says that the problem of organised theft poses a heightened risk for ordinary bystanders, who are sometimes perceived to be thieves and are at risk of being harassed and arrested by guards. The Guardian has previously reported that a group whose minibus broke down on a public road through the farm at night in 2021 alleged they were set upon by guards using wooden clubs and sustained injuries including a broken leg.
Partner Africa sent its report to Del Monte on 17 November. The supermarkets were sent an executive summary by Del Monte in December, days after the Guardian and TBIJ published a report into another death. The body of Peter Mutuku Mutisya was discovered in a dam on Del Monte’s farm in November four days after friends said he had gone there to steal pineapples. Del Monte Kenya said it had “fully cooperated with Kenyan authorities throughout its investigation” into Mutisya’s death and that the postmortem had found he died by drowning.
Tesco suspended supply of Del Monte’s Kenyan pineapples last summer. Waitrose said it had stopped selling pineapples from the farm in September.
Commenting on the four deaths in December, a Tesco spokesperson said: “We were deeply concerned to learn of the new allegations concerning Del Monte’s Thika farm in Kenya. We took the decision in June 2023 to suspend Del Monte fruit products sourced from this farm following previous allegations, and this remains the case. Both directly and through cross-industry bodies, we continue to urge Del Monte to take appropriate and robust action, including making sure these most recent deaths are credibly investigated.”
A spokesperson for Waitrose said: “We expect all our suppliers to comply with our strict ethical standards and we’re very concerned to hear of these very serious allegations.”
They added: “An executive summary of Partner Africa’s human rights impact assessment report was shared by Del Monte to ETI members including us and other supermarkets on 18 December, and highlights areas of improvements Del Monte should make.”
Partner Africa’s report calls on Del Monte to immediately set about providing remediation to those “whose rights have been violated”. It also recommends that the company sets out a human rights action plan.
A British Retail Consortium spokesperson said: “These new allegations are extremely concerning. The welfare of people and communities in supply chains is fundamental to our members’ sourcing practices, and any practices that fall short of our high standards will not be tolerated.”
They added that a “credible action plan will need to be implemented following the recommendations” of the report and that retailers would then assess progress.
Peter McAllister, executive director of the Ethical Trading Initiative, said the ETI had overseen the commissioning of Partner Africa’s human rights impact assessment (HRIA) and that his organisation had “seen the full report, which we believe is robust and credible”.
But McAllister said the impact assessment “did not set out to investigate specific and individual cases, such as the tragic death of Peter Mutuku Mutisya, or the more recent deaths”.
“In our opinion an [impact assessment] is not a suitable tool for such an investigation and ETI would not be a competent authority,” he said. “We understand from Del Monte that an investigation has taken, or will take place. In our opinion it is very important that an effective, transparent, independent and robust investigation into the deaths of now five people to be essential.
“We will continue to raise with Del Monte the need for a credible and robust investigation of these deaths with clear accountability.”
It follows criticism from Amnesty and other human rights charities that the supermarkets had not done enough to look into the allegations reported in the joint investigation published in the Guardian last summer.
Amnesty, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the Kenya Human Rights Commission expressed concern about the way that Del Monte and the supermarkets had dealt with allegations of killings.
One of the concerns of the charities was that the work being done by Partner Africa was an impact assessment on human rights rather than an investigation into the specific allegations raised in reporting.
In November they wrote to Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco saying they thought Del Monte should have set up a fully independent investigation with legal and fact-finding experts.
Peter Frankental, a programme director at Amnesty, said: “British supermarkets need to wake up to their own responsibility to bring an end to the alleged serious human rights violations that have been occurring in their supply chains in Kenya.”
Sara Clancy, the executive director of Partner Africa, said it had engaged with “261 stakeholders, including 70 community members” to understand “human rights risks in relation to security and assess whether human rights compliant security arrangements are integrated into the companies’ policies and operations”.
Del Monte did not reply to a request for comment on the Partner Africa report. Previously, when responding to allegations of violence and deaths reported last year a spokesperson said it took the allegations “extremely seriously” and that it had “instituted a full and urgent investigation into them”. They also said the company had commissioned an “independent review by a specialist human rights consultancy”, which he Guardian now knows was Partner Africa.
Del Monte also said it was “committed to constant improvements in the way we operate to adhere to the highest international human rights standards in all our businesses”.
