Coca-Cola to review sourcing sugar from 'land-grab' suppliers in countries like India

Coca-Cola has agreed to review its top sugar suppliers, after being urged by human rights group Oxfam, to check for plantations that are involved in 'land-grab' tactics.

The company has disclosed the names of its top individual sugar suppliers for the first time, Brazil's Copersucar, Thailand's Mitr Phol and Nigeria's Dangote, and identified Brazil, Mexico and India as its top three national sources of the sweetener.

According to the Washington Post, the company would launch independent assessments of its top 16 sugar-supplying countries where Oxfam feels risks exist for land tenure violations.

Coca-Cola's 'zero tolerance for land grabbing', would require its sugar suppliers and vast network of independent bottlers to ensure that land for sugar production was acquired with the 'free, prior and informed consent' of local owners or communities that had traditional use of the property.

Oxfam's head of private-sector engagement, Chris Jochnick said that sugar has a history of land conflict problems, and companies don't want to dig under the surface of this.

Jochnick further said that there was no direct evidence that Coke was sourcing sugar from companies that engaged in such tactics, but given the company's global footprint, there should be a presumption that they will run into problems, the report added.