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Shorthand: Cargill: The Worst Company In the World
Foreword: Congressman Henry A. Waxman
Cargill is the United States’ largest privately held company, bigger even than the notorious Koch Industries. Its footprint extends around the world. But The Worst Company in the World? We recognize this is an audacious claim. There are, alas, many companies that could vie for this dubious honor. But this report provides extensive and compelling evidence to back it up.
The people who have been sickened or died from eating contaminated Cargill meat, the child laborers who grow the cocoa Cargill sells for the world’s chocolate, the Midwesterners who drink water polluted by Cargill, the Indigenous People displaced by vast deforestation to make way for Cargill’s animal feed, and the ordinary consumers who’ve paid more to put food on the dinner table because of Cargill’s financial malfeasance — all have felt the impact of this agribusiness giant. Their lives are worse for having come into contact with Cargill.
In my 40-year long career in Congress, I took on a range of companies that engaged in abusive practices. I have seen firsthand the harmful impact of businesses that do not bring their ethics with them to work. But Cargill stands out.
In contrast to the oil and tobacco industries, for instance, the bad practices documented here are not inherent to the products Cargill sells, and are, in fact, entirely avoidable. For example, perhaps Cargill’s largest negative impact on the natural world is its role in driving the destruction of the world’s last remaining intact forests and prairies. There are more than one billion acres of previously degraded land where crops can be grown without further imperiling native ecosystems, at no additional cost. Similarly, other companies grow animal feed at large scale without the same levels of water or climate pollution.
From palm oil in Southeast Asia to agriculture here in the United States, Cargill has sat out industry efforts to improve. To address these gaps, over the last five years, the Mighty Earth team has engaged in extensive, high-level discussions with Cargill. Our team praised the company in 2014 when CEO David MacLennan committed to end deforestation throughout the company by 2020, and later when it committed to stop sourcing cocoa from inside national parks.
In January, we shared a draft of this report with Cargill. Days before its scheduled release, Mr. MacLennan called us to request a few weeks to consider our findings and, more importantly, our recommendations for change. We agreed to give Cargill the chance. Two weeks later, he committed that Cargill would adopt policies to prevent the destruction of native habitat, and that he would personally lobby other CEOs in the industry to do the same.
Unfortunately, these last months have only confirmed the company’s inability to respond effectively, and Mr. MacLennan’s inability to deliver real change.
Within days of his commitment, Mr. MacLennan’s second-in-command publicly questioned the value of strict policies to protect native habitat. It took Cargill months to hold meaningful discussions with other companies that had already adopted strong sustainability policies, or to address relatively simple issues in their palm oil supply chain that other companies had dealt with long ago. Meanwhile, we kept receiving data, outlined in this report, of Cargill’s serious ongoing problems with deforestation and child labor.
Despite the challenges, we held off on the campaign for five months in hopes that discussions would give Cargill a chance to change. Unfortunately, David MacLennan’s commitments didn’t seem to translate into meaningful action by others in the company. We were particularly disappointed when Cargill released a “Soy Action Plan” that permits suppliers to continue deforestation, and more recently when it issued a letter to its suppliers opposing the spread of forest conservation policies to the Brazilian Cerrado. These actions were a direct refutation of Mr. MacLennan’s commitments. We’ve successfully worked to improve the environmental and human rights practices of dozens of companies, but have never encountered a company that has such difficulty translating high-level commitments into action.
While Mr. MacLennan seems to want to do the right thing, he appears unable to decide between those who believe Cargill can do better and those who want to keep the bulldozers running. Unfortunately, because the status quo is deforestation, child labor, and pollution, Cargill’s dithering results in a continuing environmental and human rights disaster. And because Cargill’s reach is so broad, they drag other companies into aiding and abetting their environmental destruction and human rights abuses too.
Supermarket giant Ahold Delhaize (owner of Giant, Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Food Lion, and other brands) may say it wants to provide responsible meat, but it cannot do so as long as it is in a joint venture with Cargill to supply their store branded meats. The “Science Based Climate Target” trumpeted by McDonald’s lacks meaning as long as Cargill, the manufacturer of their Chicken Nuggets and Big Macs, drives climate pollution on a massive scale.
These companies — and more than a hundred others — have repeatedly called on Cargill to change. But Cargill has just as repeatedly defied these calls. If these businesses want to fulfill their environmental and human rights policies, they must go beyond polite encouragement to shifting their purchases to more responsible companies.
Only by holding Cargill and its customers publicly accountable can we force them to change. Concerted action by citizens and consumer companies has driven enormous progress in many parts of the food and agriculture industry. Now it is time for the company that purports to be a leader in that industry to finally act like it.
Former Member of Congress; Chairman, Mighty Earth
The worst company in the world. We recognize that this is an audacious claim. But when it comes to addressing the most important problems facing our world, including the destruction of the natural environment, the pollution of our air and water, the warming of the globe, the displacement of Indigenous peoples, child labor, and global poverty, Cargill is not only consistently in last place, but is driving these problems at a scale that dwarfs their closest competitors.
That Cargill would make a grand commitment and then ignore it shouldn’t be a big surprise.
From having their membership in the Chicago Board of Trade suspended shortly after incorporating for trying to corner the market on corn and artificially drive up its price, to being responsible for the distribution of more than 150,000 pounds of contaminated beef to supermarkets just last year — Cargill has a long and sordid history of duplicity, deception and destruction. Just the past two decades provide dozens of examples.
See PDF here.
A Timeline of Cargill’s Impact:
Use the left and right arrows to explore two decades of Cargill’s destructive past. See citations here.
A Pattern of Deception and Destruction
Today, one privately-held company just may have more power to single-handedly destroy or protect the world’s climate, water, food security, public health, and human rights than any single company in history. And it’s not an oil company or a coal company, or any of the usual suspects. It’s the Minnesota-based agribusiness giant Cargill.
Cargill is America’s largest privately-owned company, surpassing the second place Koch Brothers by billions of dollars in annual revenues. Cargill is the corporate behemoth at the nexus of the global industrial agriculture system, a system that it has designed to convert large swaths of the planet into chemically dependent industrial scale monocultures to produce cheap meat, palm oil, and chocolate.
The political constraints that might have once limited its power have essentially disappeared, thanks to the rise of extremist anti-environment Presidents in both Brazil and the United States. In other parts of the world, like Indonesia and West Africa, Cargill continues to take advantage of fragile or corrupt governments to acquire vast quantities of palm oil, cocoa, and other raw materials without much regard to the manner in which it was produced.
Cargill has demonstrated the ability to do both good and ill on a grand scale. But the environmental protections and climate leadership from governments that may have once held the company’s worst instincts in check are now in retreat.
Throughout its history, Cargill has exhibited a disturbing and repetitive pattern of deception and destruction. As this report details, its practices have ranged from violating trade embargoes and price fixing, to ignoring health codes and creating markets for goods produced with child and forced labor. Under pressure, Cargill has reformed its practices in many areas — which shows that it can change when it wants to. But contrary to its view of itself as a leader, it usually comes in dead last. It has remained a laggard across multiple industries, trailing peers like Louis Dreyfus and Wilmar.
Shortly after incorporating under its present name 80 years ago, Cargill was thrown out of the nation’s largest futures and options exchange for trying to corner the market on corn. Decades later, in 2017, Cargill was fined $10 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for years of deliberately misreporting its trade values — by up to 90% — in order to defraud both the government and its trading partners.1 As this report was going to press, David Dines, the executive who created and oversaw the department responsible for these violations at Cargill, was promoted to the position of Chief Financial Officer.2 In 2018, Cargill was responsible for the distribution of more than 70 tons of contaminated beef to supermarkets.3 In between, the company has plundered the planet and shortchanged its workers and farmers, all while generating enough wealth to create more billionaires than in any other family in the world.4
Cargill today has greater influence than even many governments over the fate of our world. Companies like Cargill — and business partners and customers like Ahold Delhaize (Stop & Shop, Giant, Food Lion, and Hannafords), McDonald’s, and Sysco that sell their products to consumers — bear significant responsibility for the planet’s severe environmental crisis.
A Clear and Present Danger
Nowhere is Cargill’s pattern of deception and destruction more apparent than in its participation in the destruction of the “the lungs of the planet,” the world’s forests. Despite repeated and highly publicized promises to the contrary, Cargill has continued to bulldoze ancient ecosystems as it can within the bounds of the law — and, too often, outside of those bounds as well.
With the election of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — who has promised to open Indigenous lands and other protected areas to unrestricted exploitation — Cargill presents a clear and present danger to some of the most vital ecosystems on Earth. Like any other nation, Brazil has the right to the leaders it chooses. But, so too do the customers of Cargill have a right to insist on corporate policies that protect the environment and human rights. Those customers must act decisively and quickly.
If Cargill’s top customers — including Ahold Delhaize, McDonalds, WalMart, Sysco and others — are serious about their commitments to sustainability and human rights, they will cut their ties with Cargill, or risk being complicit in one of the greatest environmental and human rights crime sprees in history.
Brazil: A Proud Legacy at Risk
Until now, Brazil has been a leader in the battle against climate change. Since the mid-2000s, the nation has been committed to ambitious programs to curb deforestation in the Amazon. Brazil impressively cut deforestation by two-thirds from its peak, all while doubling its agricultural production by focusing expansion on degraded lands.
But the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President in 2018 could end that worthy legacy. Bolsonaro has called for violence against Brazil’s gay and lesbian community, and jailing or banishing all political critics. He has praised the military dictatorship that preceded Brazil’s current democracy. And, part and parcel of his extreme agenda, he has promised to promote logging, agriculture, and mining throughout Brazil’s rainforests, savannahs, and Indigenous lands.
According to Brazilian researcher Paulo Artaxo, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “We may face an unprecedented environmental disaster in the next four years.”10
Bolsonaro has said that Brazil has “too many protected areas” that “stand in the way of development,” and that policing of deforestation has gone too far. He has told agribusiness companies that he will roll back existing laws and give industry free rein.11 He has pledged to eviscerate Brazil’s environment agency, Ibama, to remove restrictions on the industrialized clearing of the Amazon, and to pave a highway through the rainforest.12 He has long supported opening up protected Indigenous areas to agricultural and commercial use,13 and has promised that as president he would not “give an inch to the Indigenous reservations.”14
Since taking office, Bolsonaro has abolished Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, slashed the budget of IBAMA Brazil’s environmental protection agency. Not only has the government signaled its intentions to stop enforcing existing environmental laws, it has even created a new agency to review and forgive previous violations. Unsurprisingly, deforestation of the Amazon has risen to its highest level in a decade.
According to the country’s previous environment minister, Edson Duarte, “The increase of deforestation will be immediate. I am afraid of a gold rush to see who arrives first. They will know that, if they occupy illegally, the authorities will be complacent and will grant concordance. They will be certain that nobody will bother them.”16
Many Brazilians do not support this part of Bolsonaro’s agenda. A coalition of more than 180 businesses and civil society organizations called Coalizão Brasil Clima, Florestas e Agricultura has courageously — and successfully — called on the new administration not to leave the Paris Agreement or destroy the Ministry of Environment.
Cargill has stated its support for this coalition.17 Cargill’s customers must ensure that this is not just another one of Cargill’s numerous empty promises.
The Business of Destroying the Environment
In 2014 at the United Nations Climate Summit, Cargill CEO David MacLennan stood beside UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to pledge action on climate change by eliminating deforestation from its supply chain.
“I am proud to announce today that Cargill will take practical measures to protect forests across our agricultural supply chains around the world,” said MacLennan, as he joined 150 countries, businesses, and civil society organizations to announce their support for the New York Declaration that sets a goal of dramatically reducing global deforestation.20
Because of Cargill’s size and impact, its signing the pledge was hailed as having the potential to dramatically decrease deforestation, curb climate change, and protect communities around the world.
But after the summit ended and applause died down, Cargill dropped the ball. And then they stomped on it.
Since the signing of the Declaration, Cargill has continued to drive the destruction of pristine landscapes, remaining one of the worst actors on the world stage, and one of the greatest threats to native ecosystems across the globe.
For years, Mighty Earth, other conservation organizations, and Cargill’s largest customers have tried to hold Cargill accountable for delivering on its promises to reform to no avail. Now, five years after Cargill’s pledge, and less than one year left in the timeline to end deforestation in its supply chain, comes the dawning of a potential anti-environment free for-all in Brazil. It is time for those customers to stop aiding and abetting Cargill by buying and selling their products.
More than one million square kilometers of the planet have been cleared of their natural vegetation to grow soy, one of the primary ingredients of animal feed used to raise meat. More than three quarters of the world’s soy is used to feed livestock.21
Deforestation for soy production accelerates climate change through the release of carbon, destroys wildlife habitat, and disrupts hydrological cycles, limiting the availability of water.
Across the South American frontier, Mighty Earth has tracked Cargill’s footprint. Our 2017 report “The Ultimate Mystery Meat” investigated 28 different locations across 3,000 km producing soy in Brazil and Bolivia. It showed that Cargill was one of the two largest customers of industrial scale deforestation.
In addition to their role in creating a market for deforestation-based soy, we found that Cargill finances land-clearing operations deep in virgin forest, building silos and roads, then buying and shipping grain to the US, China, and Europe to feed chickens, pigs, and cows.
After our report was covered in publications around the world, including The New York Times, The Guardian, CTV, Le Monde and others, major consumer companies, investors, and governments urged Cargill to uphold its commitments to end deforestation in Latin America.
Months later, we conducted satellite monitoring of the sites we had originally visited. Given the scrutiny to which Cargill had been exposed, and their commitments to their customers, we assumed that they would launch intensive efforts to stop deforestation at least in these locations.
In contrast, we found that Cargill was still driving deforestation at some of the same sites we had first visited, despite the scrutiny. Between Cargill and their doppelganger Bunge, they had cleared the equivalent of 10,000 foortball fields for soy.
Indigenous Peoples who depend on forests have been forced off of their traditional lands, had their land encroached upon by soy plantations, have experienced sharp increases in cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and other illnesses linked to pesticides and herbicides used to grow soy.
Cargill’s own history with soy shows that deforestation is neither necessary nor inevitable. In the one place where Cargill was forced to change, the company managed to both protect ecosystems and grow its businesses.
In 2006, following a major campaign by Greenpeace and others, Cargill and its customer McDonald’s agreed to a moratorium on clearing the Brazilian Amazon for soy. In the two years before the agreement, nearly a third of the new soy plantations in the Brazilian Amazon came from forest destruction. After the agreement, that number dropped to around one percent.
Meanwhile, the soy industry still managed to grow at a tremendous pace. Even as deforestation plummeted, the area planted with soy in the Brazilian Amazon more than tripled.
Expansion without deforestation is possible. When forced to, Cargill and others shifted their focus onto previously deforested lands, and more efficient agricultural practices.
If only a small portion of South America’s previously deforested land were developed for agriculture, it would provide ample space to achieve both agricultural expansion and ecological restoration.22
Many of Cargill’s customers, including Unilever, Tesco, McDonald’s, Carrefour, Kellogg’s, Sainsbury’s, Mars, Petcare, Ahold Delhaize, Dunkin’ Brands, and Nestle have called for extending this success from the Brazilian Amazon to other ecosystems.23 Cargill competitors Louis Drefyus, COFCO, and Wilmar have also advocated for this expansion. But Cargill has refused, and instead used its influence with trade associations to block its more responsible competitors from expanding these protections.
Spotlight on the Cerrado
Cargill’s successful Moratorium on Deforestation for Soy unfortunately applies only to the portions of the Amazon within Brazil. Outside of the Amazon, Cargill does not protect any rainforest in the eight other Amazonian countries. Nor does it protect other forests and prairies outside Brazil like the Gran Chaco of Argentina, and Paraguay. And finally, it does not protect critical ecological areas within Brazil but outside the Amazon, like the magnificent Brazilian Cerrado.
Brazil’s Cerrado is the most biologically rich savanna in the world. Roughly the size of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain combined, it is home to one out of every twenty species on Earth, including the giant anteater, giant armadillo, jaguar, maned wolf, and hundreds of bird species — as well as more than 10,000 species of plants, nearly half of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
Known as an “upside-down forest” for its small trees with deep roots, the Cerrado is the source of half of Brazil’s water and has enormous carbon storage capacity.
But over the past decade, more than 4,000 square miles per year have been converted to plantations — twice the rate seen in the 1990s.23 Now, less than half of the Cerrado remains intact, and only 3% is permanently protected.
When tropical forests are cut down and burned, their stored carbon is immediately released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, generating one-tenth of all global warming emissions.24
There are more than a billion acres of already-degraded land in Latin America that could be used to expand agriculture, and there is no reason other than corporate inertia to continue to destroy these priceless landscapes.25
Cargill’s largest customers as well as government officials and civil society have asked them and other soy traders to expand the moratorium, protect these critical areas, and focus expansion onto already degraded lands.26 Cargill refuses.
The Destruction of the Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco is a 110 million hectare ecosystem spanning Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. It is one of the largest remaining continuous tracts of native vegetation in South America, second in size only to the Amazon rainforest.
These forests are home to vibrant communities of Indigenous Peoples, including the Ayoreo, Chamacoco, Enxet, Guarayo, Maka’a, Manjuy, Mocoví, Nandeva, Nivakle, Toba Qom, and Wichi, who have depended on and coexisted with the Chaco forest for millennia.
Once the impenetrable stronghold of creatures like the screaming hairy armadillo, the jaguar, and the giant anteater, Cargill has infiltrated these frontiers, bulldozing and burning to make way for vast fields of genetically modified soy.
In 2018, a Mighty Earth field team visited soy plantations across the Gran Chaco ecosystem and documented extensive destruction of natural ecosystems, some of it illegal and some under the guise of legality. We tracked the soy from recently cleared forests to the ports where Cargill ships it around the world.
The tragedy of the destruction we documented is that it is entirely avoidable. While meat is inherently resource-intensive to produce, it does not require the destruction of native ecosystems. Latin America contains an area of previously degraded land larger than half the continental United States where soy and cattle can be raised without threatening native ecosystems. Technical experts who successfully designed the system that virtually eliminated deforestation for soy in the Brazilian Amazon estimate that extending forest monitoring to other soy-growing regions in Latin America would cost less than a million dollars a year, a tiny fraction of Cargill’s annual profits.
Human Rights Violations and Violence Against Indigenous Communities
Many indigenous communities live in forests and rely on them for food, water, shelter, and their cultural survival. Soy producers, ranchers, and illegal logging interests have often used violence to displace Indigenous People from their ancestral land.
Mighty Earth’s investigative teams have visited Indigenous communities whose traditional territories have been cut down and transformed into soy fields whose crops are exported overseas. Workers on these lands say they sell to Cargill. Cargill denies the allegations.
A village leader described to our team the fear his community experiences when planes fly overhead and spray pesticides for soy just a few hundred meters from the village, and of several children dying from drinking water from a discarded pesticide container brought back from a nearby soy field.
Another Indigenous community was invaded in 2014 by 50 armed security guards from a neighboring plantation intended to force them to leave the area. According to newspapers in accounts corroborated by community testimony, the armed security guards smashed down doors and invaded houses, assaulted the adults and children, and kicked pregnant women — some of whom lost their babies. Thirty-two members of the community were hurt. Three guards and seven Indigenous People were hit by gunshots. One guard was killed.
A community’s leader told us that the plantation keeps accusing them of trespassing on their own traditional lands, and that his people live in constant fear that the private security officers will come back. He said their rivers are so polluted by pesticides that the fish they depend upon are dying off, and that opportunities for traditional hunting have nearly disappeared.
Cargill is one of just three companies — along with Olam and Barry Callebaut — that controls more than half of the global trade in cocoa, the raw material for chocolate.28
In 2017, Mighty Earth investigations traced cocoa from illegal operations in national parks, through middlemen, to these traders, who then sold it onto Europe and the United States where the world’s confectionary companies made it into chocolate.
Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are the world’s two largest cocoa-producing countries, and in both, the market for cocoa has been the primary driver of forest destruction. Chimpanzees and other wildlife populations have been devastated by the conversion of forests to cocoa farms. In Côte d’Ivoire, as few as 400 elephants remain from an original population in the tens of thousands.
Our investigation found that, for years, Cargill helped to drive the destruction of these countries’ forests to grow cheap cocoa — buying cocoa grown through the illegal clearing of protected forests and national parks as a standard practice. In Côte d’Ivoire, an estimated 30% of the cocoa came from inside national parks and other protected areas.
In more than twenty of these national parks and protected areas, 90% or more of the land mass has already been converted to cocoa. Between 2001 and 2014, Ghana lost 7,000 square kilometers of forest, or about 10 percent of its entire tree cover, including a quarter of a million acres of protected areas. Approximately one quarter of that deforestation was connected to the chocolate industry.29
Cargill chose to buy its cocoa without scrutiny of its origins. They then sold that cocoa to the world’s leading chocolate companies, making millions of consumers unknowingly complicit in the destruction of West Africa’s parks, forests, elephants, and chimpanzees.
In 2017, Cargill joined other chocolate and cocoa companies and the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, committing themselves to immediately end sourcing from national parks and protected areas, to restore forests, and to shift to more responsible practices. Mighty Earth hailed the announcement as a positive step that finally provided some hope for the battered wildlife populations of West Africa, and a more sustainable future for the impoverished cocoa farmers who supply Cargill.
But a year later, we went back to investigate, and found that in many places, deforestation had actually increased since Cargill announced its commitment — casting into doubt whether Cargill’s pledge was anything more than the latest in a long line of commitments that it makes to great fanfare and then immediately ignores.
Cargill’s Open-Air Sweatshops
As of 2015, an estimated 2.12 million West African children were still engaged in harvesting.30 Almost 96% of these child laborers in both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire were involved in hazardous work. Cargill has kicked the can down the road for two decades. Its current low-ambition pledge is to reduce — not eradicate — the “worst forms” of child labor in cocoa by 70% by 2020.31
In July 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) filed suit against Cargill on behalf of Malian children who were trafficked from Mali into Côte d’Ivoire and forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings.
According to the ILRF, Cargill “ignored repeated and well-documented warnings over the past several years that the farms they were using to grow cocoa employed child slave laborers.”
The lawsuit charges that, for years, Cargill knowingly purchased cocoa harvested by child slaves and provided funds, supplies, training and other assistance to the plantations in Côte d’Ivoire that they knew were using child slaves.
In October 2018, a three-judge panel rejected Cargill and co-defendant Nestlé’s claims that they could not be charged for the enslaving of children outside of the country. The Court ruled that the case can proceed, as the giant corporations are charged to have aided, abetted, and profited from child slavery from their corporate offices in the United States.
The ILRF legal team will soon be filing additional charges against Cargill and others for knowingly benefitting from the trafficking of children into slavery to harvest cocoa.32
As one of the world’s largest importers and exporters of palm oil, Cargill is one of the companies that has helped drive the alarming destruction of tropical rainforest and carbon-rich peatlands, contributing significantly to climate change, the deaths of more than 100,000 orangutans, the loss of Indigenous community lands and livelihoods, and the mistreatment of workers.
Cargill consistently describes itself as a “leader” in the sector — but time and again, all over the world, Cargill keeps coming in last place. It’s hard not to see a pattern.
The company has devastated the traditional territories of Indigenous communities33 and purchased palm oil from rainforest destroyers who illegally burned rainforests and trafficked in slaves and child labor.34 Executives from one of its suppliers were fined and jailed for causing forest fires35 — contributing to a toxic haze from fires lit by palm oil and timber companies that have cut short the lives of more than 100,000 people across Southeast Asia.36
In 2016, the massive, Malaysian-based palm oil conglomerate IOI was caught illegally laying waste to protected tropical rainforests, draining and digging up carbon-rich peatlands, and exploiting local communities and workers.37 And they have encroached on Indigenous Sarawak for nearly a decade without consent.38 As a result, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) suspended IOI’s sustainability certification and 26 companies canceled their contracts with IOI, including Unilever, Kellogg Company, Mars, Hershey’s, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Yum! Brands, and Nestlé.39 Only months later, after repeated and growing continued public pressure, did Cargill join the rest of the business community in severing its ties. Cargill has since resumed sourcing from IOI.40
Similarly, in 2015, the Guatemalan palm oil company Reforestadora de Palmas del Petén, S.A (REPSA) was identified as likely responsible for massive contamination of one of Guatemala’s largest rivers, resulting in a massive fish kill of more than one hundred and fifty tons of fish, devastating over a hundred communities that depend on the river. Following a lawsuit brought by a local community group, a Guatemalan court found REPSA guilty of “ecocide” and ordered them to suspend operations.
After the ruling, Commission spokesperson and Indigenous professor Rigoberto Lima Choc was murdered, three other members of the group were kidnapped, and REPSA forced the ruling to be overturned. Not until after years of pressure by organizations in the US and Latin America environmental and human rights organizations, and the arrests for bribery and tax fraud of three of REPSA’s top executives did Cargill finally suspended their contract.41
Cargill still does not have a comprehensive approach to prevent and address the growing intimidation and violence of human rights defenders that is widely prevalent in its supply chains for palm and other commodities.42
Producing meat has a larger environmental impact than almost any other human activity.
Cargill is the second-largest feed beef processor in North America and the largest supplier of ground beef in the world.44
Feeding and raising meat consumes more land and freshwater than any other industry, and the industry’s waste byproducts rank among the top sources of pollution around the world. Many of these impacts are concentrated in the United States, where factory farming has its stronghold, but are spreading rapidly to other parts of the world. The meat industry can dramatically reduce many of these impacts through better farming practices for sourcing feed and raising livestock, such as cover cropping, using rotationally raised small grains in feed, fertilizer management, conservation of native vegetation, feed improvements, and centralized manure processing. Major meat producers like Cargill that have consolidated control over the market have the leverage to dramatically improve their environmental impact. Yet to date they have done little — ignoring public concerns and allowing the environmentally damaging practices for feeding and raising meat to expand largely unchecked.
And for the past three years, ten of Cargill’s facilities have been out of compliance with EPA emissions regulations every single quarter.45 Just as it is trying to take advantage of political rollbacks to environmental enforcement in Brazil, Cargill seems to be trying to take advantage of the Trump administration’s efforts to scale back environmental enforcement in the United States.
Runoff pollution from corn and soybeans, of which Cargill is one of the nation’s top processors, is responsible for more than half of the nitrogen and a quarter of the phosphorus that finds its way into the Gulf Mexico, causing an annual dead zone from algal blooms which in 2017 grew to the size of New Jersey. While Cargill has adopted policies for reducing the environmental impacts of its commodity crops abroad, it has adopted none for those supply chains in the U.S.
Cargill is one of the top ten food industry polluters in the U.S. in the food industry, for the following toxic chemicals:
Cargill is one of the top ten food industry polluters in the U.S. of all companies for the following toxic chemicals:
Negligent, Not Inevitable
In a 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation,46 The New YorkTimes found a pattern of negligence and recalcitrance on the part of Cargill that led to a disastrous outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, a particularly virulent strain of bacteria found in animal feces.
Investigators for the Times found that Cargill hamburger patties tainted with E. coli had been sold at Sam’s Club labeled “American Chef ’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.”
According to the Times, the hamburgers, whose ingredients were listed solely as “beef,” “were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.”47
Using a combination of sources rather than whole cuts of meat saves Cargill about 25 percent in costs, but the lowgrade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli.
The Times discovered that in the weeks leading up to the 2007 outbreak, federal inspectors had repeatedly found Cargill violating its own safety procedures in handling ground beef.48
Cargill’s Partners in Crime
The Dutch company Ahold Delhaize operates 6,500 stores under 21 local brands in 11 countries. Construction is set to begin on a 200,000 square- foot facility Cargill run facility in North Kingstown, R.I., to provide Ahold Delhaize-owned stores with beef, ground pork and prepared meats.51
Ahold is very active in calling for responsible food policies. They joined other companies as signatories of The New York Declaration on Forests calling for all companies to end deforestation in their supply chains by 2020. They are a part of “Protein Challenge 2040,” a coalition of international retailers, food manufacturers and non-governmental organizations with the stated goal of working toward the sustainable production and consumption of protein.53 They were one of the original signatories to the 2018 Statement of Support for the Cerrado Manifesto, a document that calls on Cargill and other companies to cease the destruction of this biodiversity hotspot. And they have a target in place for 2020 that requires the certification of all of the South American soy in the supply chain of its store-branded meat products. In addition, they have called for standards on human rights consistent with the UN Global Compact, and support the Consumer Good’s Forum’s resolution opposing forced labor.54
In meetings and conversations with Mighty Earth going back years, Ahold Delhaize staff have acknowledged the issues with Cargill meat and animal feed, and repeatedly pledged to act. But despite all this rhetoric, and their deep knowledge of Cargill’s environmental and social offences, Ahold Delhaize announced in May of 2018 that rather than moving away from Cargill, they were going to draw even closer.
They launched a major joint venture with Cargill for a new 200,000-square-foot “Infinity Meat Solutions” packaging plant to provide Ahold Delhaize’s US stores with beef, ground beef, pork and “creative prepared meats for meal solutions”.55 In clear contrast with its words, Ahold Delhaize is rewarding Cargill with a massive market, making Giant, Stop & Shop, Hannaford, and Food Lion’s customers unknowingly and unnecessarily complicit in Cargill’s misdeeds.
McDonald’s is probably Cargill’s largest and most important customer. McDonald’s restaurants are essentially storefronts for Cargill. Cargill not only provides chicken and beef to McDonald’s, they prepare and freeze the burgers and McNuggets, which McDonald’s simply reheats and serves.49
Burger King’s practice of selling meat linked to Cargill and other forest destroyers has earned the fast food giant a ‘zero’ on the Union of Concerned Scientists deforestation scorecard.Burger King has asked Cargill to stop destroying forests in their supply chain…by 2030.50
With 55 billion dollars in annual revenue, Sysco Inc. is the world’s largest distributor of food products to restaurants, healthcare facilities, universities, hotels and inns. Despite claiming that they will, “protect the planet by advancing sustain- able agriculture practices, reducing our carbon footprint and diverting waste from landfill, in order to protect and preserve the environment for future generations,” they have honored Cargill as their most valued supplier of pork and beef.52
Cargill’s competitors have shown the world that a different path is possible. The Louis Dreyfus Company, one of the four largest traders in soy from Latin America, has recognized the urgent need to protect native ecosystems and communities. In a new policy, the company announced that it would no longer buy soy from producers who destroyed native ecosystems or grabbed land from Indigenous communities. Given the widespread availability of already degraded lands, Louis Dreyfus recognized that it could continue to grow without destruction.56 Wilmar International, Asia’s leading agribusiness and one of the world’s leading soy buyers has supported similar change, and in January 2019, COFCO, the largest food processor, market- er and trader in China, said it was an “ethical imperative” to immediately move soy production off of intact forests.57 Meanwhile, Cargill has kept the bulldozers running. Louis Dreyfus’ policy gives companies like Ahold Delhaize and other Cargill enablers an alternative for their soy purchases.
2018 brought a drumbeat of troubling news, with the United Nations and the US Government reporting foreboding warnings for the earth’s climate and its inhabitants.
First, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that we need “rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems” to avoid catastrophic impacts from global warming. A few weeks later, the U.S. government’s Fourth National Climate Assessment in November of 2018 said that, “without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century.”
We still have a choice about the future we want, but we may be the last generation that does. A better world is possible, but only with immediate and substantive action.
While both the reports and the media focus primarily on the role of government, for the most part it is not governments that do the polluting or deforesting — it is large industrial and multinational companies like Cargill.
Whether or not governments do their job doesn’t mean the job can’t be done. Some of the world’s greatest environmental successes have been achieved by companies, acting either from their own sense of responsibility, or spurred by customers, investors, and society more broadly. Cargill itself and other soy traders have demonstrated this by protecting part of the Amazon because their customers demanded that they to do so.
But Cargill refuses to expand these protections to other landscapes, even going as far as to publicly announce its opposition to a moratorium on the destruction of Brazil’s priceless and threatened Cerrado, supported by more than seventy consumer goods companies. This is a slap in the face to Ahold Delhaize, McDonald’s, and others that have repeatedly called on Cargill to build on the extraordinary success of the Amazon Soy Moratorium. If these companies are serious about their own sustainability commitments, they’ve got to go beyond polite calls and shift their purchases to more responsible suppliers.
MAR. 2, 2000 – EDITORIAL/OPINIONS
———————————————————————————————————————— Cargill: Our taxes, global destruction
Minnetonka-based Cargill is often noted as the world’s largest private corporation, with reported annual sales of over $50 billion and operations at any given time in an average of 70 countries. The “Lake Office” of Cargill is a 63-room replica of a French chateau; the chairman’s office is part of what was once the chateau’s master-bedroom suite.
A family empire, the Cargills and the MacMillans control about 85 percent of the stock. Not only the largest grain trader in the world, with over 20 percent of the market, Cargill dominates another 12 sectors, including destructive speculative finance, according to “Invisible Giant: Cargill and its Transnational Strategies,” by Brewster Kneen.
Taking advantage of the capitalist speculative collapse of 1873, Cargill quickly bought up grain elevators. After vast cooperation with the state-sponsored railroad robber barons, central grain terminals averaged extremely high annual returns on investments of 30 to 40 percent between 1883 and 1889. Cargill hired a Chase Bank vice president to secretly help the corporation through the Depression, writes Dan Morgan in “Merchants of Grain.”
“There are only a few processing firms,” and “these firms receive a disproportionate share of the economic benefits from the food system,” states William D. Heffernan, professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri. Details of Cargill’s price manipulations at the expense of farmers worldwide was documented in the classic study, “Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity” by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins. They report that Cargill has had a history of receiving elite government price information that should be told to U.S. farmers.
That secrecy, along with tax-subsidized market control, enables Cargill to buy from U.S. farmers at extremely low prices and then sell abroad to nations pressured under the same destructive elite corporate control. See the Institute for Food and Development Policy’s Web Site at http://www.foodfirst.org….
Between 1985 and 1992, the legal entity called Cargill received $800.4 million in tax subsidies via the Export Enhancement Program, a continuation of the infamous “Food for Peace” policy, writes Kneen. Promoted by Hubert H. Humphrey and instituted as PL 480, food became a Cold War tool, i.e. “for Peace.” If we can induce people to “become dependent on us for food,” then “what is a more powerful weapon than food and fiber?” Humphrey declared, according to “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies” by Noam Chomsky.
Actually, most of the nation recipients of tax-subsidized Cargill food dumping were, and are, net exporters of food already — policies imposed by colonial trading patterns. The food (for Peace) has been bought cheaply by neocolonial regimes, and then sold at a huge discount on the local market — in Somalia, for example, at one-sixth of the local prices. Many examples of these misguided policies can be found in “Betraying the National Interest: How US Foreign AID Threatens Global Security by Undermining the Political and Economic Stability of the Third World,” by Frances Moore Lappe, et al.
Cargill’s undercutting wipes out the local farmers’ self-reliance, while the revenues (going to the elite) are tied to required purchases of U.S. weapons, writes Chomsky, citing “The Soft War” by Tom Barry, 1988. But the main beneficiary of “Food for Peace” has been Cargill. Keen writes, “From 1954 to 1963, just for storing and transporting P.L. 480 commodities, the heavily subsidized giant Cargill made $1 billion.”
Indian lawyer N.J. Nanjundaswamy reports that a Cargill motto is, “One who controls the seed, controls the farmer, and one who controls the food trade, controls the nation.” Yudof’s recently stated support of federal foreign policy Title XII is another public promotion of the University of Minnesota-Cargill partnership’s raiding of sustainable agricultural cultures.
Cargill is such a damaging threat that in Dec. 1992, 500,000 peasants marched against corporate-controlled trade, and the irate farmers ransacked Cargill’s operations. Fifty people were arrested at the partially completed — and subsequently destroyed — seed-processing plant in Bellary, India. In 1996, 1,000 Indian farmers gathered at Cargill’s office and destroyed Cargill’s records. For more, see http://www.endgame.org...
Cargill has been doing bio-piracy, stealing traditional products. For instance, it used Basmati, a rice from India, as its trade name, and the company continues to be one of the main promoters of corporate-driven intellectual property rights. The U.S. Trade Act, Special 301 Clause, allows the United States to take unilateral action against any country that does not open its market to U.S. corporations.
The United States, for example, has threatened to use trade sanctions against Thailand for its attempt to protect biodiversity. A bill that has been before parliament in India and promoted by Cargill, “takes away all the farmers’ rights, which they have enjoyed for generations — they will no longer be able to produce new varieties of seed or trade seed amongst themselves,” writes Nanjundaswamy.
The research center, Rural Advancement Foundation International, found that “fifteen African states, among them some of the poorest countries in the world, are under pressure to sign away the right of more than 20 million small-holder farmers to save and exchange crop seed. The decision to abandon Africa’s 12,000-year tradition of seed-saving will be finalized at a meeting in the Central African Republic. The 15 governments have been told to adopt draconian intellectual property legislation for plant varieties in order to conform to a provision in the World Trade Organization.”
Cargill, with extensive funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, is also destroying the world’s largest wetland — the Pantanal, in South America — in order to dredge a channel that’s designed for convoys of up to 16 soybean- and soymeal-carrying barges, according to the Institute on Food and Development Policy.
Cargill has been on the Council of Economic Priorities’ list of worst environmental offenders. Mother Jones magazine and Earth Island Journal report that Cargill is responsible for 2,000 OSHA violations, a 40,000-gallon spill of phosphoric solution into Florida’s Alafia River, poor air pollution compliance and record-high releases of toxic waste.
With help from the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, located at http://www.poclad.org…, states have recently begun to respond to citizen pressure and revoke corporate charters. The assets of Cargill should be revoked, allowing the citizens of the United States to give farmers the benefits of fair trade instead of Cargill’s secretive policy of tax-subsidized global destruction.


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Amazon Subsidiary Gets Into Grocery Business
Is there any category that Quidsi can’t get into? First, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon started with Diapers.com and the later expanded into Soap.com, BeautyBar.com, Wag.com and YoYo.com. Now it is moving into the grocery business with the addition of 10,000 shelf-stable items on the Soap.com website.
"Our philosophy is to make our customers’ lives easier," said Marc Lore, CEO of Quidsi, in a press release. "We already carry a vast selection of health, beauty, and household essentials. Our customers have been asking about grocery since we launched in 2010. It was a seamless transition to offer a large selection of beverages, snacks and meal prep items for the whole family on Soap.com. Our goal is to continue to expand our product selection, and ultimately, help eliminate errands so our shoppers can spend more time doing the things they enjoy."
Grocery items carried by Soap.com will include coffee, tea, snacks, cereal, pasta, baking ingredients and canned items. As with all other orders made on Soap.com, consumers will get free one or two-day shipping, depending on location, for orders over $39.
Interestingly, with the move Quidsi is competing with is own parent company as well as all the other stores and websites that sell groceries. Ultimately, the fact that Quidsi might take some grocery sales away from Amazon should not be a concern, according to a GigaOm article, because it ultimately goes back to Jeff Bezos and company anyway.
The company, which was purchased by Amazon for $545 million in cash and assumed debt last year, had sales of $300 million in 2010, according to TechFlash.
- Soap.com Launches Grocery Category Featuring Massive Selection – Quidsi, Inc./Marketwire
- Next up in Amazon’s world domination: Groceries – GigaOM
- Amazon’s Quidsi adds grocery delivery service – TechFlash
Discussion Questions: Which website, Amazon or Soap.com, do you think is more likely to succeed with its online grocery service? What categories do you think Quidsi will expand into next?

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LEADING ferry company Stena Line is celebrating the start of the new university term with a fantastic STUDENTS GO FREE offer that will help save some much needed cash.
This great value offer which is available on all of Stena Line’s Irish Sea routes means one adult can travel from as little as £79* single and bring a car full of students for free (for travel between 30 August – 31st October, book by 30 Sept), as well as everything needed for university life including cases of clothes, textbooks and widescreen TVs.
Diane Poole OBE, Stena Line’s Head of PR and Communications said: “Leaving home to travel to university is a life-changing experience for thousands of young people.
“Not only are they moving to another city leaving their family and friends behind, but they then have to cope with the financial challenges a tight budget throws at them.”
Diane added: “That’s why our students go free fare is such a good deal – as long as Mum or Dad is driving – every student who travels will pay absolutely nothing. If you have an eight-seater – that’s a lot of savings but even with one or two students in the car this is a great offer!”
“A common worry among parents is the logistics and cost of getting their child’s belongings to their new home.
“When you travel with Stena Line there are no baggage restrictions meaning you don’t have to compromise on what you bring with you.
“Every year we see so many things you can’t fit in a suitcase including lamps, food hampers, bedding, games consoles, tables and chairs and even ironing boards making their way to new homes across the Irish Sea.”
Stena Line has an even more generous offer for students on its Facebook page with the chance to win free travel, a fantastic Student Survival Kit including an iPad mini!
Everything a student could possibly need for going to university is up for grabs including toastie-makers, Ikea vouchers, pots and pans, and a fantastic iPad mini to help with coursework!
To enter go to facebook.com/StenaLineUKIE and simply upload a photo of what you absolutely cannot live without at university, plus a brief description.
One lucky student will get their hands on the Super Student Survival Kit but there are also lots of other chances to win a range of prizes over the 6 weeks with one winner being picked a week.
For further information or to book, click on www.stenaline.co.uk/student, call 08447 70 70 70 or visit your local travel agent.


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‘Bring Kalanick Back’ drive finds many riders in India
Starting late Wednesday, Uber employees circulated a petition asking the company's board of directors to bring back Kalanick in an active role.
Will Uber pull brakes on India with 'brilliant jerk' Travis Kalanick's exit?
Earlier, Uber's India unit was always kept informed about the fu...
Uber sued by India rape victim over alleged privacy violation
The lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, came as Uber Chief Executive ...
Changes at Uber may drive its India plans off the road
The cab-hailing company is battling allegations of widespread mismanagement and a toxic workplace culture, especially since former employee Susan Fowler in a blog post in February wrote about her experience at Uber.
Want to work in a startup? But, what about its workplace culture?
Startups pride about a work culture that is based on openness and fluidity. However, recent high profile cases show there is a dark underbelly to how many startups operate and the culture they are building.
SoundCloud's CEO gave an awkward interview about the future of his company, refused to answer most questions
SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung gave a rare interview, and answered some questions about the company's plans to launch a subscription service.
Uber to appoint India CEO soon, will have multi-seater leadership
Uber, which is valued at over Rs 2.4 lakh cr, has grown swiftly in India since its launch in Bengaluru in 2013 — it is now present in 12 cities.
Rape accused driver was working for Uber: Firm's Asia head
Yadav, who was the registered owner of the car, was operating it for his company and according to the records was also the driver of the vehicle.
Uber cab rape case: Court records statement of investigating officer
The police, in its charge sheet, had cited 44 prosecution witnesses in the case but later dropped 16 witnesses saying their deposition was not necessary.
Uber Asia Head claims rivals taking advantage of ban in Delhi; seeks more government parleys
Taxi-hailing apps were banned in Delhi nearly a month ago after a woman passenger was allegedly raped by a driver on the Uber network.
Uber to compensate drivers in Delhi 'indefinitely'; to prevent them fleeing to rivals
The ban, following the alleged rape of a woman in a taxi hailed through Uber app, had raised concerns about the livelihood of the taxi owners.
Uber promises five new security features for Indian customers
Mobile-based cab service company Uber said it was putting in place five extra layers of security designed for customers in India.
Uber promises five new security features
Uber executives said they were also putting together an adjudication team which would verify the authenticity of every document submitted by a driver.
Uber starts nationwide verification drive of drivers
Uber has begun a nationwide verification of registered drivers to scrub its database and make sure that only those who can be vouched for are on its rolls, weeding out the rest.
Uber, Olacabs hopes ride on Karnataka High Court Order
In Nov. 2013, Karnataka HC ruled that taxis operating under a tourist permit could also ply within city limits, without violating the terms.


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Bogota, Colombia – May 16, 2019 – Held biennially in Bogota, Colombia, the Expo-Bitcoin International is one of the largest and most prestigious cryptocurrency events in South America. This year, the conference is highlighting numerous companies and organizations that support Bitcoin SV, including the Bitcoin Association, CoinGeek.com, nChain and more.
Noted speakers on the event include Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen, nChain’s Chief Scientist Craig Wright and Director of Engineering Steve Shadders, Centbee co-founder Angus Brown and CEO Lorien Gamaroff Money Button CEO Ryan Charles, Bitcoin Advocate Connor Murray, Handcash CEO Alex Agut, and more.
Event producer and CEO at Colombia-based Bitcoin payment processor Bitek.co, Boris Javier Barrera notes, “we are so thrilled to have the leading lights of BSV joining our event. It’s beyond exciting to be able to spread the word of the return of the original Bitcoin vision.”
Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen adds, “We are excited to bring the message of Bitcoin SV, which represents the original Bitcoin, to South America as it’s an increasingly important market for the global Bitcoin SV ecosystem. As the world’s new money, Bitcoin SV will bring greater financial freedom and inclusion to people in South America and beyond, and its massively-scaled blockchain will be the data ledger to power all major enterprise applications.”
At the event, the Bitcoin Arena will bring the most important thinkers and advocators of the original vision of Bitcoin, as well as regulatory authorities and industry pioneers from all over the globe. The Expo-Bitcoin is nurtured with a crowded marketplace with more than 200 vendors selling everything from a cup of coffee to a car, to a real estate project for Bitcoin SV.
ABOUT BITCOIN ASSOCIATION: Bitcoin Association is the leading global organization for Bitcoin business. It brings together merchants, exchanges, application developers, enterprises, miners and others in the Bitcoin ecosystem to advance the business of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Association supports Bitcoin SV (BSV) as the original Bitcoin, with a stable protocol and scaling roadmap to become the world’s new money and global public blockchain for enterprise.


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Over the past decade companies have had to shift the way they do business – a move driven large by the widespread use of the Internet, which is enabling consumers in making better, more educated choices about the companies with which they do business.
There has also been a significant increase in global competition as consumers gain the ability to access, compare and purchase products and services from a large number of businesses via the Internet.
“As a result, contact centres are being seen as competitive differentiators, rather than as compulsory cost centres,” says Ebrahim Dinat, sales and marketing director at outsourced professional services provider, Ocular Technologies.
“This shift in perception, coupled with increasingly demanding consumers, is putting a sizeable amount of pressure on contact centre managers to maximise their agents’ performance and to improve their operations. To meet these elevated expectations, contact centre managers must begin to optimise their contact centre resources and enhance the quality of the experiences their centres are providing.”
By synchronising people, applications and processes, contact centre managers can reduce labour costs, enhance service levels and build customer loyalty but, most importantly, they can align operations with their company’s overall strategic objectives.
“Contact centres that are successful in these efforts will be able to meet executive and consumer mandates, and drastically increase the overall value they contribute to the corporation,” says Dinat.
There are a number of specialised applications that can be used to help contact centre managers consider everything that has happened in the contact centre and then develop a logical plan that can control costs, enhance service levels and align performance with strategic goals.
These tools, which can enable contact centre managers and agents to act immediately in making goals-driven adjustments across multiple groups and locations, include workforce management tools, call recording and quality management reporters, performance management tools, campaign management and speed analytics.
“Contact centre management should also not dismiss the data gathered by automatic call distributors, diallers, voice portals and other telephony platforms,” says Dinat. “These applications can provide critical agent and queue level data that can be used, along with information being pulled by analytics applications like those mentioned above, to gauge the performance of the entire contact centre on both a real-time and historical basis.”
Looking at the information gathered from a strategic perspective provides greater opportunity for engaging customers, maximising agent performance, optimising resources and improving the quality of interactions and the customer experience delivered, says Dinat.
“And, when contact centres align strategic business objectives with the goals of front line employees, it is much more likely to achieve success.”
However, he adds, the right tools will not make a difference in a contact centre that is not analysing and evaluating the right metrics, or has not properly trained its agents. The real mark of a successful contact centre is what happens after the agent is connected to the customer, and this is entirely dependent on the customer’s ability to reach a knowledgeable and empathetic agent, who can provide fast and efficient service.
“Performance optimisation solutions make it easier for contact centres to be proactive as they know what has happened in the past, they can see what is currently going on in the contact centre, and can take action right away, making intraday adjustments and planning for future scenarios.
“Ultimately, they have the tools, knowledge and power to ensure they are meeting both consumer demands and achieving overarching strategic corporate goals. Using the right data for the right reasons can help contact centres consider everything that is happening and act immediately to improve their performance, meet the soaring expectations of senior executives and make greater contributions to the bottom line,” says Dinat.


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The Ministry of Trade has decided to sell a relief bag of 20 essential items including 10 kilos of Super Samba through the CWE outlet network. The Minister of Trade Bandula Gunawardena stated at a media briefing held today that this relief bag is being sold for Rs. 3998.
In addition to rice the bag contains, a kilo of white sugar, a kilo of red lentils, a kilo of string hopper flour, 500 grams of sprats, 400 grams of noodles, 400 grams of table salt, milk of 2 coconuts (330ml packet), 100 grams of chili powder, 100 grams of pepper, 100 grams of turmeric, 100 grams of STC tea, 80 grams of soap, one cube of Sathosa sandalwood soap, 100 ml of hand washing liquid, 90 grams of soyameat, one cube of Sathosa TFM rating ditergent soap, 1 packet of papadum and 10 surgical face masks. The Minister of Trade points out that if the goods are purchased from a supermarket, it will cost at least Rs. 5771 and the Sathosa customers will get an advantage of Rs. 1750.
The relief bags will be available for purchase through the Sathosa outlet network from today. The Minister said that a packet of liquid coconut milk prepared by a local entrepreneur and exported using the latest technology could also be included in the relief bag. Accordingly, milk of two coconuts (330 ml packets) will be issued to consumers at a concessionary price of Rs. 150 through the Lanka Sathosa outlet network.


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Beefing up the national herd with dairy cattle
Getting the right animals to meet the needs of rearers, finishers, meat processors – and the final consumer – will play a key role in gaining wider uptake of beef cattle sourced from Scotland’s dairy herd.
With the number of suckler cows continuing to fall, and processors often crying out for more, fears have been raised that Scotland’s world-famous beef industry could be in danger of losing the critical mass required to support the underlying infrastructure of the trade.
And earlier this week an industry-wide meeting took place to consider the role which the dairy sector could play in producing a greater proportion of the quality side of the country’s red meat.
“Beef production and processing in Scotland faces challenges including, first and foremost, levels of profitability that are, at best, marginal,” said NFU Scotland vice-chairman Gary Mitchell. “That has seen a decline in overall beef production and processing capacity and risks to critical mass.”
Speaking after the meeting – which had support from all sectors of the beef business, including the Scottish Government, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB); Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS), the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers (SAMW), beef processors Scotbeef and ABP, the Scottish Dairy Hub and SRUC – he said: “The meeting highlighted the fact that all players with Scottish red meat and dairy interests are committed to maximising the potential for beef production from the dairy herd in Scotland.”
He said that with the UK only 75 per cent self sufficient in beef, all sectors were committed to working together to increase the quality and quantity of cattle from both dairy and beef herds which were presented for processing.
He said that such a move was feasible given the strength of the Scottish brand, backed by the work and reputation of farmers, processors and QMS.
“The group agreed there is merit in exploring existing supply chain initiatives; assessing the potential in Scotland to develop pilot schemes; assessing breeding, feeding and management systems; considering the potential to develop calf rearing systems with professional expertise and initiatives to streamline efficiency and collaboration,” said Mitchell.
Douglas Bell, director of industry development with QMS, said that the move represented an “exciting opportunity” for the Scottish beef industry.
He said that both dairy cross and dairy sired calves were currently potentially eligible to be marketed as Scotch Beef, provided they meet the brand eligibility criteria – and added that dairy farmers were increasingly using sexed semen to produce replacement heifers for their herds: “This means they can then use beef bulls with their remaining cows. Use of estimated breeding values also allows farmers to select beef bulls which will produce high quality calves.”
Dairy cattle can offer a solution to beef ‘shortage’


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PetroChoice recently announced that it has acquired the lubricant business of Commercial Distributing Inc. (CDi). Headquartered in Oklahoma City, CDi has been a distributor of lubricants in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas, specializing in the automotive market. The company will begin operating immediately as PetroChoice.
"I am pleased that PetroChoice is as dedicated to fostering the growth of my business for my employees and customers as I was,” said Michael Barcum, president of CDi. “I identified technology in distribution methods as being important in my vision for our regional distribution effort and the future of this industry, and PetroChoice is at the forefront of these endeavors."
Barcum will join the PetroChoice CEO Strategy Council, which is an advisory board that provides ideas, support and contacts to PetroChoice’s leadership team. Other members of the team include leaders from former PetroChoice acquisitions, such as Steve King (Anderson Lubricants), Ross Smith (Miller Industrial Fluids), Rick Palmore (Universal Lubricants) and Mike Foltz (LubriCorp).
"We welcome CDi's associates and customers to PetroChoice," said Celeste Mastin, PetroChoice CEO. "PetroChoice currently services customers in this footprint, and the addition of CDi locations will prove beneficial to our commitment to anticipate and meet our customers' needs."
For more information, visit www.petrochoice.com.


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From the moment Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” danced through the radio airwaves, her millions of monsters worldwide have been eagerly and anxiously waiting for the music video debut of the hit single. The wait is finally over Thursday, March 11 when E! News exclusively premieres the epic video, which features pop superstar Beyoncé, during the show’s 11:30 PM broadcast.
Take a look at 3 brand new, behind-the-scenes shots from “Telephone”
After the premiere, Gaga will dissect the inspiration behind “Telephone” and explain how she has been able to out-do herself yet again exclusively to Ryan Seacrest. The video will make its online debut at midnight that evening on VEVO.com and LadyGaga.com.
Gritty, erotic and wildly fierce, this nine-minute, visually stunning, cinematic masterpiece is helmed by famed music video director Jonas Akerlund. Rich with Gaga’s unique dance stylings, iconic costume design and unworldly hair and make-up, this is far from your typical music video.
Lady Gaga has said that the video for “Telephone” picks up where “Paparazzi” left off but will surpass its predecessor. Gaga’s on-screen chemistry with Beyoncé transforms the song from a popular dance floor gem to a raw and explosive piece of art to be reckoned with.


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Panera Bread (NASDAQ:PNRA.DL) recently announced its "Panera 2.0" transformation. The initiative includes faster service and the use of technology to increase the quality of food and accuracy of orders -- and more importantly a superior customer experience.
A series of integrated technologies to enhance the guest experience for all consumers no matter how they choose to use Panera. Panera 2.0 brings together new capabilities for digital ordering, payment, operations and, ultimately, consumption to create an enhanced guest experience for customers.
According to CNN, 40% to 45% of orders at Panera Bread are to go; so the company is creating a first-in-class system where customers would place their orders online and request a pick-up time. Upon entering the store, clients' orders will be already waiting in a designated area.
Panera Bread 2.0 essentially locks in the long-term value of the brand. It also presents a compelling story for long-term investors looking for exposure to an already popular brand taking steps today to prepare itself for the future.
During an interview with Bloomberg's Carol Massar, Panera Bread's CEO Ron Shaich admitted that roughly $42 million has already been directed toward Panera's push for faster and better service. Massar quoted a figure of $125,000 required to upgrade each store; Panera Bread has around 1,700 stores across the U.S, translating to a total investment just north of the $200 million mark.
The only problem is Panera Bread 2.0 won't be rolled out nationally until year-end 2016. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Panera Bread is highlighting its long-term growth drivers while its near-term expectations are quite low, especially as heavy investments could eat away at margins in fiscal 2014 and 2015. Adding to investors' concerns is the fact that management has not provided any specific earnings guidance for 2015, which could lead shareholders to conclude that the company's 15% to 20% earnings-per-share growth target is at risk.
Investors could be rewarded in the long-term by buying shares of Panera Bread today as several sell-side analysts aren't looking far enough down the road at the bigger picture and view the short term as challenging with minimal expectations..
Robert Derrington of Wunderlich Securities downgraded Panera Bread to hold from buy on March 26 due to what the analyst believes will be "increased 'lumpy' earnings performance through 2015."
Investors who are in it for the long term could take advantage of a period of "lumpy" earnings and use any pullback in share price as an entry point to accumulate a larger position.
Despite concerns over near-term expectations, long-term same-store-sales and EPS growth could be understated based on Panera Bread 2.0 initiatives which will be rolled out in the coming years.
Panera Bread holds an edge in food inflation
Panera Bread along with Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG) are leaders not only in the fast-casual and quick-upscale category but also in food transparency.
Danny Carberry is the director of concept for Panera Bread and wrote an article for Food Tech Connect entitled "Trend Watch: 2014 Food Industry Predictions."
In the article, Carberry praised Chipotle Mexican Grill for being at the forefront of shifts in consumer behaviors, including a demand for transparency, sourcing integrity, and basically anything and everything "green." Chipotle Mexican Grill, according to Carberry, is a company "doing it right."
Unfortunately for Chipotle Mexican Grill, being a leader in its field comes with very high costs. The company is flirting with the idea of increasing its prices as it faces cost inflation, especially for its core offerings of avocados, salsa ingredients, and beef.
We are not in a hurry, and we wouldn't hesitate, if conditions suggest that we shouldn't take it, that maybe we will either defer it or take it off the table altogether in 2014.
Now at some point, we don't want to be underpriced, so there is a desire to not be so far under what others are charging in the industry that people are wondering, 'Well, gee, I wonder with this food integrity thing, how can they claim that their ingredients are better when they are charging so much less than other restaurant companies out there?' So we would not want to be in that kind of a situation, but it's still possible we may pull the menu price off the table in 2014. -- Chipotle Mexican Grill's co-CEO said during the company's fourth-quarter conference call in January.
Panera Bread will see its costs "easing" (according to Bloomberg) as record harvests from India to the U.S. expand the supply of wheat, sugar, and other commodities. In fact, Panera Bread expects "very modest deflation" for wheat in 2014.
Chipotle Mexican Grill can come up with all the creative marketing gimmicks it wants to reach its consumers. But none of this will ease inflation concerns, especially over beef, which is in a long-term sustained inflation period, according to John Barone, president and commodities analyst at Market Vision. Barone believes that beef inflation is likely to continue through 2016 or possibly 2017. This could signal that Panera Bread is the tastier investment for those in it for the long haul.


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Metal Gear Survive delayed into 2018
Konami has confirmed that the release window for Metal Gear Survive, the upcoming co-op shooter which will also be the very first Metal Gear game to be developed without the involvement of series creator Hideo Kojima, has been pushed back into 2018.
According to a statement from Konami, Metal Gear Survive needs a few more months so that the development team can add some polish and make sure the game is in a solid state for release, not a bad strategy to take considering the game will heavily emphasis online four-player co-op play. In addition to its co-op mode which will pit players against waves of crystalline zombie creatures, Metal Gear Survive will also reportedly have an in-depth single-player story mode.
Metal Gear Survive is set in an alternate universe with a timeline that runs perpendicular to the events of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The game was originally set to launch in late 2017 but the delay has pushed it into 2018.


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Petitioners are hoping Larkspur residents approve measures on the April 8 ballot that would allow for retail marijuana sales in the town and potentially put money into the pockets of residents.
James McVaney helped Larkspur resident Michelle Burhenn file petition referendums against the town's moratorium on retail marijuana, made legal in 2012 by Amendment 64 to the state constitution.
Council either had to accept the ordinances, which would establish a retail marijuana industry and its regulatory scheme and set a 5 percent excise tax, or send it to a vote of the people. The council chose the latter earlier this year.
Burhenn could not be reached for comment. McVaney said he lives about 10 miles west of Larkspur in Cherry Park. His group, the Cannabis Patients Alliance, helped overturn a similar ban in Idaho Springs last year. Read more: Larkspur could rake in revenue from retail marijuana.


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Fire ProWrestling series returns to the ring
Classic Japanese wrestling franchise climbs the ropes once again on the PlayStation 2 this summer.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.
In 2003, Japanese developer Spike said it would close the curtains on its Fire ProWrestling series after the release of Fire ProWrestling Z for the PlayStation 2. The series, which debuted on the TurboGrafx-16 in 1989, isn't dead yet, however. According to Famitsu, a new version of Fire ProWrestling is coming to Japanese PlayStation 2s this August, when Spike releases Fi-Pro Returns. No further details have been revealed, but GameSpot will bring you more information on the game as it becomes available.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email firstname.lastname@example.org


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Don’t mention the D word.
In last week’s bizarre public address highlighting the U.S. unemployment numbers, this was an actual quote from President Trump: “This isn’t a terrible recession. I don’t even mention the ‘D’ word. I don’t talk about the ‘D’ word. I don’t want to talk about it because every time somebody even mentions it — I don’t like the ‘D’ word.”
The D word that Trump was referring to (I suspect, but then who knows?) is depression. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, another D word that is not popular is deflation.
The European Central Bank appears to be in a funk about how to address the looming price deflation. That is because a tightrope must be walked between those states in Europe that are gunning for the ECB to monetarily inflate more (Spain, Italy) and those that are more cautious (Germany, Netherlands). The assumption, which we think is loose at best, is that flooding the economy with newly created euros will cause consumer prices to surge. However, even though there is often a link between monetary inflation and price inflation, it is not mechanical. Nevertheless, the ECB seems to be paranoid about even acknowledging the threat of price deflation, in case it stokes the fears of those states opposing more stimulus.
ECB President Lagarde body-swerved a question on deflation in a recent press conference and ECB Chief Economist, Philip Lane, couldn’t bring himself to type the D word in a recent blog, stating: “Taken together, the scale of the increase in economic slack means that the net impact on inflation dynamics is assessed to be substantially negative in the staff projections, even when allowing for the pro-inflationary impact of some damage to supply capacity.”
Thus, heads are firmly buried in the sand. If consumer prices start to deflate (as we expect), perhaps the ECB will call it negative inflation, as some already call price deflation. Central banks are so focused on consumer prices as a gauge of their “success” in aiding the economy that they can’t see the forest for the trees. When all this historic money printing doesn’t end up in rampant price inflation, expect central banks’ focus on consumer prices to be ditched. Ironically, that will probably be the signal of price inflation ahead.


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Removal of subsidies on cotton to benefit Indian exports: Government
The decision taken at the World Trade Organisation’s 2015 Nairobi Ministerial to eliminate export subsidies on cotton will benefit Indian shipments of the crop.
Elimination of export subsidies on cotton beneficial for Indian exports, says government
India is not a major user of the export subsidies an...
Cotton exports may dip 10% on rise in local prices
The CCI, which buys cotton from farmers when rates go below the support prices, said it ha...
Weather concerns, upbeat US export data, currency math weigh on cotton
Ongoing worries with respect to demand concerns from the world’s top consumer, China, capped sharp gains in cotton prices on the ICE platform this week.
Monsanto jumps on withdrawal of Bt cotton notification
Agriculture Ministry issued a notification capping royalty fee for new GM seeds at 10% of the maximum sale price for the first five years.
Monsanto up over 3 per cent on withdrawal of Bt cotton notification
Amid opposition from the crop biotech industry, the government yesterday withdrew a notification capping royalty for new genetically modified (GM) traits.
Biotechnology firms upset with Bt Cotton royalty rates order
The notification, meant to help farmers distressed by two droughts, also empowers an official body to decide if a particular technology is no longer effective enough to deserve any royalty at all.
Government puts off GM cotton seed order, eases pressure on Monsanto
In an order last week, the farm ministry said any company providing any new, advanced variety of GM cotton would not be allowed to charge royalties.
Wear light-coloured cotton to save yourself from heat stroke
The skin may lose its moisture and water retention capacity leading to hot and dry skin.
Government caps royalty fee on new GM cotton traits at 10%
After the 5 year period, royalty would reduce by 10% of initial value every year. If the GM technology loses its efficacy, the technology provider would not be eligible for any royalty.
Cotton under pressure on higher plantation in US, strength in dollar
As per the CCI, India’s arrivals stood at 29 million bales as of May 4, 2016. Arrivals still continue to trail behind compared with last year.
'Interest Equalisation Scheme will boost cotton textiles exports'
The scheme has however excluded cotton yarns. Further, the scheme is also not made available to the merchant exporters.
CIL eyes export market in Bangladesh
Coal India subsidiaries, Bharat Coking Coal and North Eastern Coalfields, plan to supply coal to Bangladesh power companies.
Monsanto India slips 9% as govt tightens rules over sale of GM cotton seeds
While there was no filing by the company regarding the matter on the stock exchanges, by the time of reporting the article, the new order is seen tougher.
Chinese economy casts its shadow over Indian exports of cotton and copper
China imported 7 per cent less cotton yarn from India in the three months to October 2015 over the preceding three months; the fall in import was sharp in October.
Cotton exports to rise as Bangladesh takes China's place
Higher exports will cap global prices, but raise domestic prices and help bring down government purchases at the support price.
Oil prices slip as Iraq raises exports
Traders said that the official start to the U.S. peak demand summer driving season, which kicks off with Memorial Day on Monday, was the main reason for rising seasonal demand.
Maruti starts export of Super Carry to South Africa
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India said it has started exporting its Light Commercial Vehicle 'Super Carry' to South Africa, ahead of its launch in the domestic market in the second quarter of this fiscal.
Coal India exploring export opportunity to Bangladesh
Coal India subsidiaries — Bharat Coking Coal and North Eastern Coalfields — plan to supply coal to Bangladesh power companies.
Coir export inches close to Rs 2000 crore
The US, China, Netherlands and South Korea are the main buyers of coir products from India. China is the principal buyer of coir fibre from India.
Famous Malda mango facing major export crisis
Malda and adjoining districts in West Bengal form one of the largest mango yielding regions of the country producing over 5 lakh tonnes.
Monsanto challenges new price order for Bt cotton seeds: HC seeks Centre reply
Delhi HC today sought a response of the Centre and the National Seed Association on a plea by Monsanto Mahyco Biotech Ltd challenging the government's new price control.
Texprocil hails govt sops to boost cotton fabrics export
Texprocil today welcomed the inclusion of exports of cotton fabrics, and made-ups to leading markets, including African countries, under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), which is expected to boost exports.
Indian soya meal exporters to explore new markets
In last two years, India lost traditional markets. Iran shifted to other origins, Vietnam switched from import of soya meal to import of bean, Japan switched over to GM soybean meal.
Rajesh Exports wins export order worth Rs 1,053 crore
Rajesh Exports said it "has bagged an export order worth Rs 1,053 crore of designer range of gold and diamond-studded jewellery and medallions from the UAE".
Interest subsidy scheme to help exporters face global headwind
Nirmala Sitharaman today said the interest subsidy scheme announced by government last year would boost exports, which are in negative zone since December 2014.
Fresh fruit exports increases at a time when India’s overall exports have declined
According to commerce ministry data, export of fresh bananas in the April-February period of 2015-16 rose 19.6% compared with the full year exports of 2014-15.
India to finalize rice export deal with Indonesia soon: Trade secretary
India can ask the state-run Food corporation of India to sell its 1 million tonnes rice from its stockpile to Indonesia who, world's leading rice importer.
Exporters tear hair out as packages go missing from Kolkata airport
Hair collectors on cycles roam around in villages with dugdugis (damaru) in places such as Midnapur and Murshidabad in search of good-quality hair.
Export of crude detrimental to national interest: Centre to HC
ASG Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said it was a part of the government policy not to permit export of crude.
Domestic cotton output to be 341 lakh bales in 2015-16: CAI
Country's cotton output is estimated to be 341 lakh bales for 2015-16 season, which began on October 1, according to industry body CAI.
Govt allows bulk export of rice bran oil
India's vegetable oil (comprising edible and non-edible oils) imports touched a record 14.61 million tonnes in 2014-15 oil year (November-October).
Global factors impacted exports heavily: Bharat Forge
B N Kalyani, Chairman and MD, Bharat Forge Limited speaks on the earnings of the company and says that global slowdown made a huge impact on the exports of the company.
NCDEX cotton contract jumps 338% in March quarter
NCDEX today said its cotton contract has performed well registering a jump of 338 per cent at Rs 1,376.71 crore for the quarter till March 21, 2016.
Exporters can be put on caution list on ED, CBI action: RBI
RBI today said exporters can be put on a "caution" list in case the trader is not making any efforts for realisation of export proceeds.
Commercial vehicle exports fall due to slowing oil-run economies
The fall has been primarily attributed to the slowdown in the oil dependent economies which are the main export markets for Indian OEMS.
Cotton exports may grow 18% in 2015-16: Union Textile Minister Santosh Gangwar
The country's cotton shipments are expected to rise by about 18 per cent in 2015-16 as against the previous fiscal, the government said today.
Hope worst is over on export front: Commerce secy
In an exclusive interview with ET Now, commerce secretary Rita Teaotia says that a large part of the decline in export is a function of the price of petroleum products.
Slow domestic consumption, exports will affect spinners' business: ICRA
High dependence on exports to China has resulted in sensitivity of India’s exports to China’s policy on reserve cotton stock, the report said.
Signs of revival in exports: FIEO president SC Ralhan
The decline in imports is encouraging for managing the trade deficit and may help in giving a fillip to domestic manufacturing, but the figures point to a topsy-turvy path, Ralhan said
Government wants local GM cotton seed by next year to check Monsanto
The Competition Commission (CCI) is investigating whether an Indian arm of the US-based technology major resorted to anti-competitive practices in the GM cotton seed market.
'Exports-led growth revival will not work for India'
In a chat with ET Now, Taimur Baig, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank, says we are heading towards 8 per cent core inflation and this combined with lack of momentum in economy is a pretty bad combination.
Rajesh Exports' Board to mull over acquisition in June
The company had said that with Valcambi acquisition, REL will become an integrated player covering precious metal refining and gold jewellery making.
Rajesh Exports wins Rs 780-cr export order
Jewellery exporter and retailer Rajesh Exports today said it has won an export order worth Rs 780 crore from Singapore.
Ahead of OPEC meeting, Iran says no plans to freeze oil exports
Since sanctions were scrapped in January, Iran has been determined to build its dented exports back up, making a compromise with Saudi almost impossible.
India doubles its grape exports to Europe
Exports of grapes from India touched an all-time high in 2015-16, with exports to Europe more than doubling compared to that in the previous financial year.
Failure of Bt cotton forces government to promote native seeds
A decision to revive cultivation of indigenous varieties of cotton was taken in a meeting yesterday, headed by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
Cotton futures drop on selling pressure
At the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange, 29mm cotton delivery for March dipped by Rs 190, or 1.18 per cent, to Rs 15,930 per bale, with an open interest of 1,073 lots.
Indian iron ore exports need tax relief to compete globally
FIMI is putting across the Government that exports of iron ore will not lead to any scarcity of ore for the domestic steel plants, present or future, says H Noor Ahmed.


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20 March 2014
Randstad Holding nv launches the Randstad Innovation Fund, a strategic corporate venture fund to invest in HR technology companies. HR technologies ensure future, innovative solutions to make HR processes more efficient and bring fresh answers to HR challenges.
"Our ambition is to shape the world of work, and technology is a crucial element to achieve this", says Linda Galipeau, Executive Board member of Randstad Holding nv. "The Randstad Innovation Fund can play an important role in accelerating the understanding of technology innovations in our industry and will be able to give input for our future strategy and contribute to innovative solutions for our clients."
The Randstad Innovation Fund intends to build a portfolio of multiple smaller investments over the next couple of years. The fund will invest in the following areas: social sourcing, online platforms, mobile solutions, virtual solutions, gamification and big data analytics. The Randstad Innovation Fund will be managed by Ilonka Jankovich and Paul Jacquin.
The fund's first investment is in Gigwalk, an online platform that enables leading consumer brands and retailers to track and improve retail execution by using the world's largest network of mobile-enabled independent contractors. Gigwalk's mobile crowdsourcing and online enterprise platform complements Randstad's capability in managing workforces and offering solutions to our clients. Randstad is joining investors, such as Nokia Growth Partners, August Capital, Harrison Metal, and SoftTech.
Visit www.randstad.com/innovationfund for more information.
More information on Gigwalk
Since launching in 2011, over 500,000 Gigwalkers have completed more than 4 million Gigs for businesses across North America. Based in San Francisco, California, Gigwalk is backed by August Capital, Harrison Metal, Nokia Growth Partners, Randstad Holding, SoftTech, Greylock Discovery, Accelerator Ventures, and Founder Collective. For more information, visit gigwalk.com
Randstad specializes in solutions in the field of flexible work and human resources services. Our services range from regular temporary staffing and permanent placements to inhouse, professionals, search & selection, and HR Solutions. The Randstad Group is one of the leading HR services providers in the world, with top-three positions in Argentina, Belgium & Luxembourg, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Greece, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States as well as major positions in Australia and Japan. In 2013, Randstad had approximately 28,000 corporate employees and around 4,600 branches and Inhouse locations in 39 countries around the world. Randstad generated revenue of € 16.6 billion in 2013. Randstad was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Diemen, the Netherlands. Randstad Holding nv is listed on the NYSE Euronext Amsterdam, where options for stocks in Randstad are also traded. For more information see www.randstad.com.
For more information, please contact: David Tailleur/Saskia Huuskes, telephone: +31 (0)20 569 56 23


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The British built CR-V is the next model in the Honda line-up to receive the new Earth Dreams Technology 1.6 i-DTEC diesel engine.
Honda has taken the wraps off the Civic Tourer Concept at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.
A new Honda Concept model will be making its European debut at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show showcasing an exciting future of new models and technology for the brand.
Honda is delighted to announce its partnership with the newly formed Wiggle Honda Women’s Pro Cycling Team, in its debut year competing in road racing on the world stage.
The all-new Honda Urban SUV Concept has made its world debut at the 2013 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit.
Honda Motor Europe has today announced changes to its UK car manufacturing operation to ensure the long term stability of its future business.
The outstanding practicality, versatility and interior space of the Honda CR-V has long been appreciated by its customers. Those qualities have also sparked huge interest from – and significant sales to – the UK’s emergency organisations.
Honda has teased in a sketch, the new urban SUV concept. that is a global concept model
The fourth-generation Honda CR-V comes to the 2012 Paris Auto Show from 29 September to 14 October for its European debut.