Dole Food Company, Inc. (NYSE: DOLE) is an American-based agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Westlake Village, California. The company is the largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, operating with 74,300 full-time and seasonal employees who are responsible for over 300 products in 90 countries.Dole markets such food items as bananas, pineapples (fresh and packaged), grapes, strawberries, salads, and other fresh and frozen fruits and juices.

 

Dole's Chairman founded the Dole Nutrition Institute, a nutritional research and education foundation.

 

Labor relations

The banana industry has traditionally been dominated by a few large corporations, which employ low-wage workers in developing countries.

 

Dole was named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of 73 heirs of victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia.

 

In 2007, Nicaraguan plantation workers, represented by Los Angeles-based personal injury lawyer Juan Dominguez, sued Dole and Dow Chemical Company, claiming the use of illegal pesticides such as the now banned Nemagon (containing DBCP) had made them sterile. The pesticide was not banned in Nicaragua until after Dole ceased its operations within the country. The suit and two others were subsequently thrown out by California courts after it was concluded that “[c]ontrary to their sworn testimony, most of the plaintiffs never worked on Dole-affiliated banana farms and none were involved in the DBCP application process,” while similar lawsuits were filed in U.S. and Nicaraguan courts.

 

A lawyer for the Nicaraguans, Steve Condie, however, stated that some of the witnesses who gave testimony that the claims were fraudulent, had been paid by Dole. The witnesses' identities were kept secret so that the plaintiffs' lawyers could not interview them.

 

Swedish director Fredrik Gertten made a documentary film about Dominguez and the alleged banana workers. The movie Bananas!* premiered in the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival. Because Dole had serious concerns on what the film might reveal to the public, it urged festival officials to "immediately cease and desist" their sponsorship of the film.The festival officials allowed the film to be screened, but it was not allowed to compete for placement in the competition. In addition, festival officials distributed information before the film's screening that indicated Dole believed the film to be factually inaccurate.

 

Although the film was screened with a disclaimer from the festival, Gertten was subsequently sued for defamation by Dole.The lawsuit was dropped on October 15, 2009, and in November 2010 a court in Los Angeles found in favour of the movie crew making it possible to release the movie in the USA, and ordering Dole to pay SEK 1.4 million (roughly USD 200,000) to the filmmakers.

 

The Nicaraguan DBCP awards against Dole were overturned in July 2010.

 

Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods in California

 

In 2012, Dole Packaged Foods contributed $171,261 to a $46 million dollar political campaign known as "The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition, sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers".This organization opposed California Proposition 37 (2012), proposing mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients. Dole's donation was among the lowest provided by manufacturers to the "No" campaign.Proposition 37 was defeated in the California state election on November 6, 2012.