In March 2023, Florida farmworkers undertook a five-day, 45-mile trek on foot from one of the poorest communities in Florida to a mansion-lined, oceanfront town that is one of the richest in an effort to pressure retailers to leverage their purchasing power for better worker pay and working conditions.

The farmworkers said they were marching to highlight the Fair Food Program, which has enlisted companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Taco Bell and Whole Foods to use their clout with growers to ensure better working conditions and wages for farmworkers. They hoped to use the march to pressure other companies, like Publix, Wendy’s and Kroger, to join the program that started in 2011.

The march’s launching point was a camp where farmworkers were coerced into working for barely any pay by a labour contractor who was convicted and sentenced last year to almost 10 years in prison. The contractor confiscated the Mexican farmworkers’ passports, demanded exorbitant fees from them and threatened them with deportation or false arrest, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Coverage of this story and responses from companies linked to the contractor can be read here.

According to the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which organised the march, the program has ensured that farmworkers are paid for the hours they work; guaranteed them on-the-job safety measures such as shade, water and access to bathrooms; and has reduced the threats of sexual assault, harassment and forced labour under armed guards in the fields where tomatoes and other crops are harvested. Immokalee is a southwest Florida farming town in the heart of the state’s tomato-growing area.

Growers have benefitted since it reduces turnover and improves productivity, according to the coalition.

The Resource Centre invited Publix, Wendy's, Kroger, Walmart, Sam's Club and Schnucks to respond to this story and CIW's demands. Only Wendy's responded. Coalition of Immokalee Workers provided rejoinders both to Wendy's and to all non-responding companies regarding CIW's demand the supermarkets join the Fair Food Program. Walmart provided a response which can be read in full below.