Hearthside Foods suspends staffing agency following investigation

Hearthside Food Solutions makes baked goods and snacks at 19 plants across the U.S. Courtesy The Right Place

Hearthside Foods, the Grand Rapids-based manufacturer featured in a bombshell New York Times investigation into companies employing underaged migrant workers, said it relied on staffing agencies to screen job applicants.

In a guest column sent exclusively to the Grand Rapids Business Journal, Hearthside Foods CEO Darlene Nicosia said the company was unaware minors were working in its facility.

“When the New York Times reported that underage workers who may have used falsified documents were hired by staffing agencies, and later assigned to temporarily work at places like and including Hearthside, it came as a shock and major disappointment to us,” Nicosia wrote. “The reporting suggested clear violations of our policies and actions that were in direct contrast with our values.”

Hearthside’s policy bars hiring anyone under 18 and the company said it does not use staffing agencies that hire minors, “even on a temporary basis.”

For the Times’ report, Hearthside acknowledged it had not required staffing agencies that supplied it with workers to use E-verify, a voluntary federal system that confirms the identity and eligibility of applicants to work in the United States. Nicosia said Hearthside Foods later mandated that its staffing agencies use E-verify to certify that they had complied with the company’s requirements.

Nicosia wrote that the company also has hired an outside law firm and an independent auditor to conduct a review of its practices and said Hearthside hopes to “rebuild and strengthen the trust and confidence placed in us.”

However, Nicosia’s statement, which went into depth on the requirements Hearthside has for its staffing agencies, did not identify the agencies nor whether they are still employed by Hearthside.

The original reporting by the Times named Forge Industrial Staffing as one of the main providers of underage employees to Hearthside.

Forge responded to the allegations that it employed minors with a statement saying it “takes these allegations extremely seriously and has been horrified at reports of the scope and scale of exploitive child labor across the United States.”

Forge added: “Under no circumstances would we ever knowingly place a child under the age of 18 with one of our clients. Following publication of the original article, we conducted an immediate internal review and have not been able to verify any of the claims made in the media report. All workers have provided identity documents to confirm they are 18 years of age or older.”

Teresa Hendricks, executive director at Migrant Legal Aid, a nonprofit organization advocating for migrant workers’ rights, previously told the Grand Rapids Business Journal she was not surprised to hear allegations that the companies used migrant child labor.

“It’s known that they hire minors,” she said. “I know of them hiring 14-year-olds, 17-year-olds. I mean, we have complaints that come in against staffing and the working conditions, and the workers are told that they have to speak to Hearthside about it, and then Hearthside won’t do anything about it because they say they’re not the ‘real employer.’”

Hearthside originally stated on Feb. 25, following the Times’ report, that it planned to request an audit of employees from its staffing agencies by Monday, Feb. 27, as well as fully implement E-verify as a requirement for its agencies by that date.

Hearthside did not respond to the Grand Rapids Business Journal’s inquiry into the results of the audit.

In the guest column, Nicosia added that Hearthside will only work with staffing agencies who are “transparent” and committed to taking the additional steps required.

Nicosia wrote: “In one instance where we identified process concerns related to hiring practices, we suspended them.”