Modern slavery at Nestlé’s coffee supplier

Zurich, Lausanne, 18. June 2025

In collaboration with Repórter Brasil, Public Eye has uncovered exploitative working conditions on Brazil’s coffee farms operating in Nestlé’s supply chain, in several cases recorded on file. This is in spite of the fact that the world market leader from Switzerland has been promising “zero tolerance” for the use of slave labour by its suppliers for years.

Key facts:

  • Exclusive investigations have documented issues in Nestlé’s Brazilian coffee supply chain like debt bondage and degrading working conditions, which the authorities consider as amounting to “modern slavery”.
  • The coffee from the affected farms was certified as “responsibly” sourced by the 4C standard or the AAA program developed by Nespresso.
  • Nestlé has known for years about blatant abuses at Brazilian suppliers and has vowed to improve the situation, but we are still waiting for this to happen.

On 3rd May 2023, officials from the Ministry of Labour in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo freed ten harvest workers from “slave-like conditions”. According to the inspection report, which was exclusively made available to Public Eye, the underpaid workers at the Mata Verde coffee farm toiled under “degrading conditions” and debt bondage. This meant that they were carrying out forced labour outlawed by international convention. The authorities also confirmed the use of “threats, fraud, deception or coercion”. Two of the affected workers, who we were able to interview, even feared for their lives and therefore fled the farm.

Mata Verde supplied its Robusta coffee to the large cooperative Cooabriel, a direct supplier to Nestlé and an official partner of the Nescafé Plan, the global brand’s most important sustainability programme. It was produced according to the 4C standard, which certifies Nestlé’s coffee as being “responsibly sourced”. This farm was excluded from the 4C scheme only after news of the state rescue operation became publicly known. As our investigations show, serious breaches of Brazilian labour law were confirmed in 2022 on two other Cooabriel farms. Furthermore, in July 2023, the authorities classified a farm that produced coffee certified by Nespresso’s AAA programme as involved in modern slavery. Nestlé's supplier only severed its business ties with the farm a year and a half later, after receiving information from Public Eye.

The first cases of slavery in Nestlé’s Brazilian coffee supply chain were uncovered as early as 2016, which led to the Swiss company announcing a “zero tolerance” policy on this matter. In 2019, Nestlé switched completely to certified (i.e. supposedly “responsibly sourced”) coffee in Brazil. To ensure that their promises will finally be kept, rigorous controls and effective measures to prevent and improve working conditions have to be implemented in cooperation with local workers’ organisations. Respect for workers’ and human rights also means providing a living wage for all harvest workers and a living income price for coffee producers. In Switzerland, the recently submitted Responsible Business Initiative requires companies to comply with appropriate due diligence obligations and makes them liable for any breaches committed.

More information here or from:

Oliver Classen, Media Director, +41 (0)44 277 79 06, oliver.classen@publiceye.ch

Carla Hoinkes, Agricultural Expert, +41 (0)44 277 79 04, carla.hoinkes@publiceye.ch