Ahold exposé in Dutch journal puts pressure on company to join Milk with Dignity
Posted Fri, 11/14/2025 - 7:32am
The recent call-in day to Hannaford headquarters was a big success! Hundreds called the office of president Mike Vail, leaving messages demanding Milk with Dignity. Throughout the campaign, thousands of supporters have made calls to the grocery chain to show their support for farmworker rights.
Mike Vail isn’t the only one feeling pressure this week. His bosses at Hannaford’s parent company – multinational Ahold Delhaize – are feeling the heat, too, thanks to a new blockbuster exposé in news journal De Correspondent. The article pulls back the curtain on the shocking labor abuses in Hannaford’s dairy supply chain, revealing that the $100 billion Dutch company (nearly three times bigger than Dutch institution Heineken, for example) is getting rich off labor practices that would be illegal in the Netherlands.
Let’s keep the pressure on! Join farmworkers on the picket line 11/15 at Hannaford stores across Vermont: 10am in Morrisville, 1pm in South Burlington, and 4pm in Middlebury!
The in-depth article in De Correspondent outlines the human rights violations endemic to dairy farms supplying Hannaford Supermarket – subminimum wages, mandatory unpaid overtime, unsafe housing and working conditions, even forced labor – and quotes farmworker and Migrant Justice leader Olga on the fight for dignified working conditions:
“Sometimes I'm at the point where I want to give up and go back [to Mexico]. But we've worked so hard here to be seen and recognized as a community. We succeeded, and now I want to stay and fight for better working and living conditions for me and my daughters…. We don’t have the luxury of giving up.”
The article outlines Migrant Justice’s efforts to bring Hannaford into the Milk with Dignity Program, including the filing of an international human rights complaint through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development this spring, which has led to an ongoing investigation for potential violations of OECD guidelines. It also gets Ahold on the record for the first time with the company’s specific objections to Milk with Dignity.
The latest excuse from the $100 billion multinational corporation? Milk with Dignity’s “significant financial obligations.” Despite there being no fixed program costs – the premium companies pay is calculated based on the costs needed for farms to achieve compliance with the program’s Code of Conduct – Ahold is now crying poor. Even as the company enriches its shareholders with annual billion dollar stock buybacks, it claims that the costs of complying with farmworkers’ fundamental human rights are too high.