Dole Food

No leading practices were identified for the company in the governance and strategy measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the environment measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the nutrition measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the social inclusion measurement area.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company has set time-bound targets covering topics within the Food and Agriculture Benchmark’s three dimensions of environment, nutrition and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to disclose how it identifies and prioritises the topics where it has the most impact.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company does not disclose the governance structure for the implementation of its sustainable development strategy or targets, such as the person, team or committee that holds ultimate responsibility for its implementation.

Stakeholder engagement
The company does not disclose stakeholder engagement activities, including how it selects the stakeholders, nor an overview of the topics discussed or their outcomes.

Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions
While the company discloses quantitative evidence to demonstrate that it is reducing its scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions and it has established a target for its farm-level emissions, it has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by expanding its targets and reporting against them.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity, and fertiliser and pesticide use
The company discloses evidence of its activities to improve soil health and optimise the use of fertilisers and pesticides. Notably, Dole Food reports on soil health techniques used in some of its banana and pineapples plantations in Latin America. While the company discloses quantitative data on the impact of these activities, it has an opportunity to strengthen its performance by setting time-bound targets to increase production from sustainable practices.

Water use
While the company has set a target to achieve 100% optimized water practices in Dole-managed farms and packing facilities by 2025 across its own operations, it is yet to report progress against the target.

Food loss and waste
While the company is addressing food loss and waste in its own operations through improvement in the packaging of some product categories, it has an opportunity to set targets to reduce food loss and waste across its own operations and supply chain and reporting against these targets

Availability of healthy foods
The company is an important player in the production and distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables, thereby supporting the availability of healthy foods. However, the company does not provide evidence of improving the nutritional quality of its packaged products.

Workforce nutrition
The company does not disclose sufficient evidence of having any workforce nutrition programmes.

Food safety
While the company discloses compliance with national regulations and/or the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene, it has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by disclosing the percentages of its own operations that are certified to a food safety scheme/certification programme recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative.

Child labour
In its Transparency Supply Chain document, Dole Foods requires its suppliers to prohibit the use of child labour. While the company addresses child labour in its Code of Conduct, it does not disclose a statement committing to prohibit the use of child labour in its operations.

Forced labour
In its Transparency Supply Chain document, Dole Foods requires its suppliers to prohibit the use of forced labour. While the company addresses forced labour in its Code of Conduct, it does not disclose a statement committing to prohibit the use of forced labour in its operations.

Living wage
The company does not disclose that it pays its workers a living wage or requires its suppliers to do the same. Neither has it set targets to do so in the future.

Farmer and fisher productivity and resilience
The company does not disclose a commitment or examples of activities to support the resilience, productivity and access to markets for farmers, fishers and/or small-scale producers in its supply chain.

Dole Food provides grievance mechanisms for both workers and third parties and commits to respecting human rights. However, the company does not disclose any expectation from its supply chain partners to uphold their workers right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. Additionally, Dole Food provides no evidence of a human rights due diligence process and does not disclose it engages with affected and potentially affected stakeholders.

Dole Food commits to health and safety, but can improve its performance by increasing its disclosure of how it monitors the health and safety performance for its workers and of its supply chain partners. Moreover, no evidence of commitments related to paying its workers a living wage, workforce diversity and gender equality was found in the public domain.

Dole Food has a publicly available policy to prohibit bribery and corruption. However, there is room for Dole Food to improve by increasing disclosure on process(es) to identify its bribery and corruption risks and impacts. Dole Food does not clearly state if it respects and protects privacy when gathering personal data from employees, suppliers, etc. and other sources. In addition, no relevant policies or commitments on responsible tax were found in the public domain and political engagement fundamentals have not been met because the company allows political contributions with approval by the Legal Department and the Divisional Senior Management.