PALM DESERT, Calif. — Melinda Goodman, principal and chief storyteller at Full Tilt Marketing, kicked off the education session on the Ethical Charter Implementation Program at the Sustainable Produce Summit by saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
Goodman, who moderated the discussion, asked attendees about their familiarity with the program; after a show of a few hands, she explained the Ethical Charter Implementation Program grew out of the Ethical Charter on Responsible Labor Practices adopted in 2018 by the Produce Marketing Association and the United Fresh Produce Association, which are now known as the International Fresh Produce Association.
Goodman said Maisie Ganzler — a strategic adviser for Bon Appétit Management Co. —recently said, “It doesn’t matter how much good we do at sustainability if it comes at the consequence or harm of people.”
This, Goodman said, is where the Ethical Charter Implementation Program, or ECIP, helps those in the fresh produce industry benchmark continuous social improvement.
Goodman, joined by panelists Wyatt Maysey, director of sustainability for Taylor Farms, and Stephanie Teclaw, quality program manager for RPE, delved into ECIP and its potential for both suppliers and retailers.
Maysey said ECIP is like food safety programs in that customers want to know that companies take social responsibility seriously; ECIP is a capacity-building tool that features a self-assessment questionnaire for growers covering 54 questions. The costs range from $200 for growers and supplier fees are based on annual sales ranging from $1,800 - $9,000.
“What ECIP is said and done, let’s not get caught in a compliance loop,” he said. “Let’s build a capacity-building program that gets out of that [compliance loop], and how does that lead to improvement?”
What makes ECIP unique is that growers have more influence in developing what this social audit will look like, Maysey said.
“We actually have a seat at the table, and it’s not a compliance stick approach,” he said. “This is definitely a capacity-building approach, which is different from what we’ve ever been asked to do.”
Goodman pointed out that ECIP’s capacity-building is self-regulation, which is different than an audit or compliance approach. She said research shows compliance doesn’t always change behavior.
Goodman asked Teclaw to weigh in on her perspective of working with getting growers on board with ECIP.
“This is a behavior change for a lot of our grower partners, because they’re not used to capacity-building tools,” Teclaw said. “What we saw early on in the pilot that we were a part of was [that] engagement was a little lower, but I think that’s where that behavior change is really showing itself, as far as [how growers are] just not used to it, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not being impactful.”
Teclaw said retailers have individual objectives with ECIP that need to be communicated to the grower. She said it’s important to get to why the objective is important to the retailer and what it means.
“The challenge is engaging the grower partners on the importance [of ECIP], and I think that messaging really has to be sustained from customers and suppliers as well,” she said.
Maysey said another important factor is how companies engage in ECIP objectives down the supply chain in a practical way.
A component of ECIP is a self-assessment of about 55 questions. He said the program will only be valuable if the industry answers honestly and indicates risks in the supply chain or labor practices.
Maysey said another component of ECIP is the marketplace, where ECIP will compile answers to highlight where the industry is doing well and where it needs to improve. And the marketplace will highlight areas where growers need improvement. For example, if the marketplace shows the need to develop good recruitment processes, the marketplace will develop to assist those participating in ECIP to improve recruitment.
“It’s an opportunity for us to enhance the culture of the growers and allow them to self-grade, because they know their business better than we do and they know their business better than the buyers,” he said. “They’ll have an opportunity to build their own marketplace on what resources they really feel they need to reduce that risk.”
He said there will come a time when buyers want proof of high ECIP scores, but that’s where Maysey said it’s important for ECIP participants to take the self-assessment seriously.
“If we treat it seriously, it’s a real tool to change that culture,” he said. “We know our business best, we know where we need the most help, and now, we have a tool to build that marketplace to do so today.”
Teclaw said in going through a pilot program with some growers, she noticed that some retailers emphasize ECIP’s capacity-building program, while others want evaluations of farm-level oversight for social audits — and often these retailers work with the same supplier.
“One is prioritizing capacity-building while the other is prioritizing a social audit,” she said. “And the farm has to do both. Then it becomes a moot point for the farm.”
She said this is where harmonization and communicating the need back to suppliers will help growers get the best benefit of ECIP. Maysey said it’s also important to go over ECIP responses with human resources and other members of the team. Those who participate in ECIP should use the resources in the marketplace.
“What’s great about this program is it can scale, and more buyers and more suppliers can come in,” he said.
Teclaw said retailers need to see ECIP as a process tailored broadly: not commodity by commodity, but by commodities with common harvesting practices and similar production.
Maysey said ECIP is also an inexpensive investment — $200 now — and as more growers come on board, it will bring more uniformity to social audits and drive the program’s value moving forward.
“I feel like ECIP helps demonstrate what the growers are already doing,” Teclaw said. “Our growers are already doing and engaging in sustainable practices and social compliance practices. It’s just a matter of documenting them. The hang-up right now is the documentation piece, and that’s why capacity-building is a better solution than an audit in these types of scenarios.”
Goodman asked both Maysey and Teclaw about the value of ECIP and how it’s changed conversations.
Maysey said he’s tried to stress to the growers he invites to participate that the value of ECIP is in how honest the grower is in answering questions. Teclaw, too, said she tries to stress the continuous improvement of ECIP as a capacity-building program instead of an audit, where it’s an evaluation where nothing changes.
Maysey said, as a supplier, he can’t see individual responses of the growers participating in ECIP. All he can see is a participation score and industrywide responses. He said he’s interested in working with individual growers to make sure the grower takes advantage of the resources within the marketplace and how the program will better benefit its participants.
“When we looked at our engagement score after the pilot, we’re not what I thought was low at 40%, but actuality is fairly high,” Teclaw said. “I was pleasantly surprised, but we took a very methodical approach to our first cohort. It was a mix of foreign partners and domestic partners, and our foreign partners in Canada far outpaced our domestic partners.”
She speculated a higher participation rate for Canadian partners is more likely due to familiarity with the type of documentation ECIP requires.
Goodman closed out the session by asking Teclaw and Maysey for advice on how the industry gets started and prepared for ECIP.
Teclaw said it’s important to connect with the right contacts on the customer side to ensure the proper messaging and priorities within ECIP get communicated to the supplier partners. Maysey encouraged those in attendance to participate in ECIP.
“This is an opportunity — if our industry commits to it — to showcase what capacity-building could mean and reduce audit fatigue and reduce that cost,” he said. “I’d heavily encourage the industry to participate in and see the value in it.”
He also encouraged growers and suppliers asked by retailers about social practices and labor practices to encourage the retailer to participate in ECIP to better understand what the industry is doing right.
“The more buyers we get in the program the better,” he said. “It’ll bring uniformity to [evaluating social practices and labor practices] as well.”
