BRAZIL/DENMARK – Two of the world’s biggest coffee companies have admitted their beans may have been harvested using slave labor on plantations in Brazil. Nestlé and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, which account for 40 per cent of the global market, said they could not rule out human rights abuses in their supply chain because they don’t know the names of all the plantations that grow their coffee.  The admissions came after an investigation by media and research centre Danwatch found that slave-like conditions were still widespread across Brazil’s coffee-producing industry.

The Denmark-based group claimed workers were trafficked for little or no pay, forced to live on rubbish heaps and made to drink water alongside animals.(Daily Mail)…[+]

PHILIPPINES – The German sailor whose “mummified” body was found on board a drifting yacht may have only been dead for a week, a new autopsy has suggested. The body of Manfred Fritz Bajorat was found in February by fishermen around 60 miles off the coast of Barabo in the southern Philippines, and later identified by officials from documents found on the boat. Dry, salty conditions were attributed to the “mummified” state his body was found in; slumped over a table used for charts with a transmitter handset just inches away from his hand.(Independent UK)…[+]

DENMARK – Denmark’s first food waste supermarket has proved a huge success – with shoppers stripping the store’s shelves of cut-price surplus produce.  WeFood opened in the Scandinavian country’s capital Copenhagen last Monday, selling produce past its sell-by-date but perfectly edible – at prices 30 to 50 per cent cheaper than normal supermarkets. The first of its kind in Europe, We Food has said it differentiates itself from other ‘social supermarkets’ – targeted nearly exclusively at those on low incomes – because it is aimed at the public in general. The store’s first day of trade was a “great success”, according to the Copenhagen Post, which reported that sales were higher than expected and customers walked away with almost all of the products on offer.(Independent UK)…[+]