Eggs with Yogurt and Chile Butter

I love Sunday morning breakfasts. Whether I am out with friends, visiting my parents, or having a quiet Sunday morning at home, it’s one of my favorite times of the week. A couple of weeks ago, a recipe for eggs with yogurt and chili butter in Yasmin Khan’s newest cookbook, Ripe Figs, caught my eye, and it looked simple enough – yogurt, eggs, and a buttery sauce. It was, in fact, straightforward, as poaching an egg is surprisingly easy with good directions. (One warning: the dish does use a surprising number of dishes for such a simple recipe.) The result was perfectly creamy, light, delicious, and filling – the perfect Sunday morning breakfast. This recipe is for one person, but you can easily scale it up for however many servings you’d like. Just remember to get some hearty and crusty bread to dip in the yogurt and egg.

This post focuses on the dairy industry in the US and specifically on the brand Chobani yogurt. (Yogurt that, unfortunately, I really like.) Chobani has cultivated an image as a socially-responsible company while greenwashing and social-washing its products. (Greenwashing is when a company makes it seem like it’s environmentally-friendly through marketing without changing its core practices; social-washing, though not as prevalent a term, refers to when companies market their commitments to labor and human rights but fail to make real changes to benefit their workers.) This year, Chobani went all out with greenwashing and social-washing by adding a “Fair Trade USA” label to its yogurt. Fair Trade USA is a certification body that puts its label on a variety of agricultural products as a sign that the goods are (allegedly) produced according to certain environmental and labor standards. The problem, however, is that the standards are often weak – and goods are often not produced according to their standards. 

There are any number of problems with the Fair Trade USA label on Chobani yogurt. First, farmers on dairy farms didn’t want this certification. Many of the farmers covered by the standard were unaware that the farms they worked on were certified, making Chobani’s claim that they “empower” workers a bit bogus. Moreover, many key parts of the standards apply only to farms that employ at least six workers. Yet many dairy farms have fewer than six workers since farms are now so mechanized that just a few workers can handle an enormous number of cows and dairy. 

The standards are also pathetically weak. They boast that workers are required to be paid at least once a month and must be given a pay slip, workers must have at least six days off a year, and all permanent employees must be given written contracts. However, except for requiring payment every month, these standards are merely “best practices” for farms with fewer than six employees – again, a large number of dairy farms.

Moreover, many of the farmers on these dairy farms didn’t want the Fair Trade USA certification. There had already been talks with Milk With Dignity, a worker-driven group that audits farms in Vermont that sell to Ben & Jerry’s. Milk with Dignity is based on a worker-driven social responsibility model, which the Coalition of Immokalee Workers pioneered in Florida in the tomato industry. This gives workers real voice and agency in auditing processes, making it much more likely that they have good working conditions and are actuallyempowered. This is especially important because so many of the workers on dairy farms are migrant workers who are often either undocumented or whose visa is tied to their job on the dairy farm.

By papering over problems and pretending they don’t exist, certifications like Fair Trade USA hurt workers. Meanwhile, companies like Chobani often sell their certified products for higher prices, thus earning more profits without changing the labor practices. Consumers, meanwhile, are duped, since they think they are paying more for ethically-produced products. 

Chobani is not unique in its green and social-washing. This occurs across industries, from coffee to tea to cocoa to clothing and so much more. Certifications like Fair Trade USA, Fair Trade International, and Rainforest Alliance make consumers believe that they are buying products whose supply chains are clean – in which workers earned a decent living and the environment isn’t harmed. Yet that’s often not the case.

To learn more about Fair Trade USA’s certification of the dairy industry, check out the Fair Food Project’s in-depth report on the certification, as well as my friend and colleague Avery’s blog post. And when you buy food, don’t be fooled by these nice labels that make it seem like workers earn a living wage and the environment is protected. If this makes you angry, call Chobani and complain!