Forced Labour Risk in the US Food Supply
Food Systems · Published 2023 & 2025 · Nature Food
Overview
Forced labour risk in global food systems is routinely framed as a problem of distant supply chains — exports from low-income countries reaching wealthy consumers. This programme of research challenges that assumption. Across two linked studies published in Nature Food, we show that the majority of forced labour risk embedded in the US food supply originates domestically, and that the foods most frequently recommended as healthy or sustainable carry their own, underappreciated labour rights burden.
The work develops and applies a Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) framework capable of resolving forced labour risk at the commodity, supply-chain stage, and dietary-pattern level — producing the first comprehensive forced labour risk profile of the US land-based food system.
Study 1: Forced labour risk is pervasive in the US land-based food supply
Blackstone, Rodríguez-Huerta, Battaglia et al. — Nature Food, 2023
What we did
We assessed forced labour risk across the entire US land-based food supply, covering 1,312 product–country combinations at the commodity stage and 2,661 activity–country combinations across processing. Risk was scored using the medium risk hours equivalent (mrh-eq) metric — a standard unit from Social LCA that expresses the volume of labour worked under forced conditions, weighted by risk severity.
Data integration drew on:
- US Department of Labor ILAB List of Goods Produced by Child or Forced Labour
- FAO trade and food supply accounts
- Working hours data from the Social Hotspots Database
- Hand-harvest risk assessments and over 700 investigative journalism articles on specific commodities and supply chains
- NGO and government enforcement reports
Risk scores were assigned hierarchically: commodity-specific evidence where available (18 % of combinations), sector-specific data (49 %), and country-level background risk (33 %).
Key findings
- 62 % of total forced labour risk in the US food supply originates from domestic production or processing — not imports.
- Animal-based proteins account for 28 % of total risk; discretionary foods (cocoa, coffee, refined sugar) for 23 %; processed fruits and vegetables for 18 %.
- Geographically: USA (62 %), China (13 %, primarily apple juice concentrate), Mexico (8 %, fresh produce).
- Agriculture carries 85 % of the embedded risk; processing the remaining 15 %.
- The highest-risk individual commodities are cocoa powder and cake, shelled cashews, refined sugar, boneless beef, and apple juice concentrate.
The finding that domestic production dominates US forced labour risk contradicts the prevailing policy assumption that supply-chain due diligence need only focus on imports from low-income countries.
Study 2: Current and recommended diets in the USA have embedded forced labour risk
Rodríguez-Huerta, Bell, Blackstone et al. — Nature Food, 2025
What we did
Building on the 2023 supply-chain framework, we linked forced labour risk estimates to nationally representative dietary intake data from NHANES (2015–2018), covering more than 200 food commodities. We then compared risk across five dietary patterns:
- Current average US diet
- Three patterns from the 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (Healthy US-Style, Healthy Mediterranean-Style, Healthy Vegetarian)
- EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet
Risk scores incorporated both agricultural production and animal feed supply chains for livestock products.
Key findings
Forced labour risk (mrh-eq per capita per day) across dietary patterns:
| Dietary pattern | FLR (mrh-eq/capita/day) |
|---|---|
| EAT-Lancet Planetary Health | 0.546 — lowest |
| Healthy Vegetarian | 0.568 |
| Current US diet | 0.610 |
| Healthy US-Style | 0.773 |
| Mediterranean-Style | 0.824 — highest |
- The Mediterranean-Style pattern — widely promoted for health and environmental benefits — carries the highest forced labour risk of all patterns tested, driven by protein foods, dairy, and fruits (especially avocados and cashews).
- Plant-forward patterns show lower risk, but no recommended dietary pattern is free of embedded forced labour.
- Protein foods, dairy, and fruits are the primary risk drivers across all patterns.
The results demonstrate that dietary guidance developed for health and environmental goals does not automatically reduce labour rights burdens — and may increase them.
Significance
This work establishes that:
- Forced labour in food systems is not a distant problem for importing countries — it is structurally embedded in domestic agricultural and processing sectors.
- Dietary recommendations optimised for health or environmental sustainability do not automatically minimise social harms.
- S-LCA applied at scale can inform procurement policy, labelling initiatives, and corporate human rights due diligence in ways that commodity-by-commodity investigation cannot.
Publications
- Blackstone, N.T., Rodríguez-Huerta, E., Battaglia, K. et al. (2023). “Forced labour risk is pervasive in the US land-based food supply.” Nature Food. doi:10.1038/s43016-023-00794-x
- Rodríguez-Huerta, E., Bell, B.M., Blackstone, N.T. et al. (2025). “Current and recommended diets in the USA have embedded forced labour risk.” Nature Food, 6, 1042–1053. doi:10.1038/s43016-025-01242-8