A boycott of Amy's Kitchen products that began in January 2022 over labor law violations and unsafe working conditions has ended, activists announced Wednesday.
Several grocers across the country, including in the Bay Area, have pulled Amy's Kitchen products from their shelves after workers filed complaints with the California Department of Occupational Safety and Health and asked regulators to intervene at the organic food giant's Santa Rosa production plant.
National food justice groups Food Empowerment Project and Veggie Mijas supported the boycott, which calls for improved workplace safety, higher wages and better health insurance.
Alejandra Torrey, a spokeswoman for the Food Empowerment Project, announced that an agreement had been reached that effectively ends the boycott.
A representative for Amy's Kitchen did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and details about the agreement were not available Wednesday.
Food line workers at Amy's Kitchen in Santa Rosa, FEP representatives and Amy's Kitchen executives have been in discussion for eight months, and Tory said Amy's Kitchen has agreed to improve working conditions for food line workers.
Paul Schieffer, president of Petaluma-based Amy's Kitchen, said the collaboration fostered dialogue and learning.
“We look forward to continuing this positive dialogue to drive meaningful improvements for our employees,” Schieffer said in a statement Wednesday.
According to the Food Empowerment Project, the company has committed to not using labor relations consultants now or in the future, to placing bilingual employee services representatives in each plant to provide employee benefits guidance and lead focus groups, to improving worker safety (specifically zero accidents and injuries), and to increasing performance pay by 3 percent.
In January 2022, Amy's Kitchen employee Cecilia Luna Ojeda filed a complaint with Cal/OSHA on behalf of her coworkers at the North Point Parkway plant in Santa Rosa.
The grievance letter, written by a Teamsters union representative, lists previous California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations and says regulators levied more than $100,000 in fines between 2016 and 2019 after inspecting the facility. Ojeda said the previous complaints did not lead to improvements in the work environment.
Food justice groups and grocers across the country then began boycotting Amy's Kitchen products.
Amy's Kitchen, founded in 1987, makes organic and vegetarian packaged meals and says it is the sixth-largest frozen food manufacturer in the U.S. It employs about 630 people in the Santa Rosa facility, where food is prepared, packaged, frozen and shipped. The company's headquarters are in Petaluma.
Organizers from the Food Empowerment Project say they will continue to be in contact with the workers to ensure the promised measures are implemented, and will check back in a year to see the cost of living and wage increases the company promised in the agreement.
Breaking news intern Amy Moore can be reached at 707-526-8545 or amy.moore@pressdemocrat.com.
