The programme demonstrated that an Italian company which has supplied Morrisons and other UK supermarkets had made covert use of tomatoes from the Xinjiang region of China (including from the state-owned Xinjiang Guannong company), creating a serious risk that some UK supermarkets’ own brand purees might contain tomatoes produced by forced labour.  Provenance testing was carried out by an Australian company which has a strong record of work to internationally recognised standards with government and law enforcement agencies and, having done no work for UK supermarkets, was free of any potential conflict of interest.  Irrespective of its lack of formal accreditation, the ECU considered it had been selected by Panorama after due diligence.  The programme did not claim the tests proved the presence of Chinese tomatoes in Morrisons’ pureé, but said “The tests can’t be 100% conclusive, but they will help identify the differences and similarities between products.  Waitrose, Tesco, Asda, and Morrisons own brand purees all had similarities with the Chinese profile.  It suggests they contain Chinese tomatoes and with 80% of Chinese tomatoes grown in Xinjiang, it’s likely these products contain tomatoes grown using forced labour”.  The relevant interviewees were aware of the evidence the programme team had gathered, including the caveats and limitations as reflected in the BBC’s journalism and outlined above.  The programme included what the ECU considered to be the key elements of Morrisons’ statement, which made clear that its own audit and testing concluded the tomatoes came from an approved source in the USA, not China.  In the light of these points, the ECU concluded that the programme had met the requirements of due accuracy and fairness to Morrisons.

Not upheld