A reflection by Mari Onkamo, CEO of Polarica Group. Prompted by the Finnish berry sector's discussion on the Employer Pays Principle, she argues that real proof of responsibility is a standard the sector helps define and can be audited against.
Last week the Finnish Food and Drink Industries' Federation (ETL) and the Finnish Grocery Trade Association (PTY) brought the wild berry value chain around the same table, with Enact facilitating. The meeting was valuable. It was originally set up to discuss the Employer Pays Principle (EPP, under which the employer covers a seasonal picker's travel costs), but I want to widen the picture.
In my mind the real question should be bigger than any single principle: how to turn general commitments to responsible sourcing into something concrete and verifiable across the whole value chain. What individual berry companies say about their own practices is not enough; the industry as a whole has to be able to demonstrate it. It matters now, because EU rules on sustainability claims and forced labour are bearing down on the 2027 season, at which point good intentions will no longer be enough. Companies will need to prove what they claim.
Satumaija Levón, ETL's Director of Sustainability & Data, wrote afterwards on LinkedIn that the next step is to move from observations towards practical solutions. I agree, and I would go a lot further: we should be considerably more ambitious about what those solutions look like, and considerably quicker about it. In my mind there are three key topics to address:
The berry sector's credibility problem is not any single company's private problem to solve. What is at stake is the credibility of the sector as a whole: when confidence in one operator falls, it falls for all of us, including those who have done the work. That is uncomfortable, but it is the reality we operate in, and it has a clear consequence: individual assurances do not solve the core problem. A company can improve and communicate its own practices in as much detail as it likes and still not move the needle, because the public is not comparing companies, it is assessing a sector.
This also places a demand on how we talk about our own industry. Ours is a sector with a great deal of hearsay in circulation, and there is an appetite outside it for dramatic stories. Neither serves us. Anything we say about how berries are picked, by whom and on what terms should be verifiable, and we should be willing to be held to it. Where something cannot be substantiated, it should not be said at all, about ourselves or about anyone else.
This season showed how much timing matters. Seasonal work permits were granted in significantly smaller numbers than in previous years, and decisions arrived once the season was already close. Berries were left in the forest, and pickers who have come to Finland to work summer after summer, some for years or even decades, could not plan a season that has become a fixed part of how they plan their finances for each year. Neither could the companies waiting for them.
The way forward is not for any party to manage this alone, but for the berry sector and the authorities to do the work together, well before the season. When that cooperation starts early enough, the decisions each actor needs, on both sides of the table, can be made in good time for everyone in the chain: terms for the coming season should be clear by December or January at the latest. Early certainty lets pickers plan, lets companies plan, and keeps avoidable costs out of the system, starting with flights booked months ahead instead of at the last minute. That is a shared goal every actor can commit to, and the work can begin now.
Predictability means little if what companies end up presenting as proof of responsibility is a signature. A signature under a statement of principles, whether on sustainability, human rights or labour practices, is not evidence. My own company would sign one without hesitation, but a declaration of intent is the easy part.
The harder question, how the principles would actually be verified, is one the sector does not yet have an answer to. Closing that gap is no longer aspirational. The EU's EmpCo directive on greenwashing takes effect in Finland this September and already bans self-created sustainability marks in favour of independent, third-party certification, and the Forced Labour Regulation applies from December 2027.
What the sector needs is a responsibility standard for the berry industry, defined jointly by the sector and the authorities and designed around the characteristics that make this industry what it is: a season measured in weeks, cross-border recruitment, and a workforce that arrives and leaves within a summer. Against that standard, external verification bodies would audit each berry company, in a manner approved by the authorities, covering the chain from recruitment to retail shelf. We are already audited by several parties, so the extra burden is smaller than it sounds. That is the difference between a promise and proof.
The value creation of hand-picked wild berries must be understood across the whole value chain. A wild berry is a unique, hand-picked product, and the value it carries is built link by link: pickers, berry companies, the food industry, retail and, at the end of the chain, the consumer. That chain of value creation has to be transparent, understandable and known from one end to the other. When the whole chain is visible, everyone in it can see what responsibly sourced berries require, procurement costs included, and what they are worth.
When pickers do well, the companies that depend on them do well. That is not a moral argument, it is a business one, and it does not work on a one-season horizon. If retail and the food industry want to stand behind responsible berries, and I believe they do, making the value chain visible has to become as concrete a discussion as the principles themselves. I would rather this sector was measured against a standard it helped define and can prove, than against a story someone else writes for it.
We are ready to put our own operations in front of an external auditor and to help build the criteria.
Mari Onkamo
CEO, Polarica Group