Young's

• Risk across the industry, not a finding about this company: fishing fleets and processing plants have some of the worst documented forced labour, including trafficked crews held at sea for years.
• Makes part of its range in its own factories
• Modern slavery statement
• Relies on fish and seafood from fishing boats and farms, where crews and farm workers, often migrants recruited into debt, have been held for months or years, beaten and denied pay, out of reach of factory audits. It hasn't shown any steps to trace its fish and seafood to the boat or farm or have the conditions of the people who catch or farm it checked, so it's graded Lacks transparency until it does.

Research notes Young's makes its fish fingers, coated fish and smoked fish at its own factories in Grimsby and Fraserburgh, and also has a site in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland, but it buys some fish already processed abroad, including through importers sourcing from China, and does not name these suppliers. It publishes no supplier or vessel list and no certified share. Its modern slavery statement relies on Sedex and SMETA audits of processing sites, with no independent checks of fishing crews. In 2023 it said it was investigating links to Chinese plants accused of using Uyghur labour and to UK fleets accused of exploiting migrant fishers, but has published no findings.