CNN on FFP, Part II: “Have you ever wondered how your tomatoes get to the grocery store?”

CIW’s Lupe Gonzalo on Wendy’s Boycott: “Sooner or later, Wendy’s will come to the table and sign a Fair Food agreement, and then we will be on the same side, all fighting for justice together.”

Today we bring you the second installment in CNN’s remarkable three-part video report on the Fair Food Program.  Click on the video above to watch Part II, or check it out on CNN’s website (scroll down to the video entitled “Slavery in the food supply chain”).

In Part I, we saw how the Fair Food Program is changing workers’ lives in the fields every day, focusing on the story of Alejandrina Carrera who, twenty years ago at the age of 14, was driven to the far corner of a field away from the rest of the crew and assaulted by her boss, then fired for resisting.  Today, Alejandrina works at Sunripe Certified Brands farms outside of Immokalee, one of the Fair Food Program’s leading growers, and she reports that under the FFP, “You’re not going to be harassed, you’re not going to be insulted, you’re not going to be forced to work. There’s more respect now.”  Check out her story here if you haven’t had a chance to see it yet.

In Part II, CNN takes a closer look at the Campaign for Fair Food, and in particular the Wendy’s Boycott.  Two quotations from the video are particularly telling when it comes to what it means to be an ethical food retailer.  The first comes from Whole Foods, whose produce aisles — stocked with Fair Food Program-labeled fruit and beautiful signs describing the FFP — are prominently featured in the video:

Matt Rogers, Senior Global Produce Coordinator, Whole Foods:  “For us, we know it’s the right thing to do, and honestly, the impact on cost is nominal.  What you get is greater transparency and an understanding of how your food is produced that you are offering to your customers, and the assurance that you are making life a little easier, a little better for the people who do the hard work to produce the food that we’re selling.”

The second quotation comes from Wendy’s, whose representatives refused to do an on-camera interview with CNN.  Instead, Wendy’s answered the correspondent’s questions by email, saying that they don’t participate because they don’t believe Wendy’s should:

The video gives the last word to the CIW’s Lupe Gonzalo’s, whose optimistic, long-view perspective captures the spirit that has driven the Campaign for Fair Food — and the success of the Fair Food Program to which it gave rise — from its start in 2001:

“Sooner or later, Wendy’s will come to the table and sign a Fair Food agreement, and then we will be on the same side, all fighting for justice together.”

Check out the full video at the top of the post, or at the CNN site now.

And check back again soon for Part III of this extraordinary report!