From prison to plates: The hidden connection between your favorite food brands and US prisons

A hidden path to America's dinner tables begins here, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country's largest maximum-security prison. (Photo/ AP)

Following a thorough two-year study, The Associated Press discovered that products connected to US prisoners wind up in the supply chains of an astounding variety of goods, including Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola, Ball Park hot dogs, and Frosted Flakes cereal. The majority of stores, including Whole Foods, Kroger, Target, and Aldi, have them on their shelves. (Photo/ AP)

The US has a history of locking up more people than any other country - currently around 2 million - and goods tied to prison labour have morphed into a massive multibillion-dollar empire, extending far beyond the classic images of people stamping license plates or working on road crews. (Photo/ AP)

​​People of color make up a disproportionate number of the prisoners who assist in producing these commodities. Some get punishments such as harsh labor sentences, forced labor, and often meager pay of cents per hour or nothing at all. (Photo/ AP)

Even in cases where they suffer severe injuries or lose their lives at work, they are frequently denied access to the same safeguards as nearly all other full-time employees. And it's all lawful, stemming mostly from labor demands made during the Civil War as the South attempted to reconstruct its devastated economy. (Photo/ AP)

The report also discovered prison labor in the supply chains of massive corporations like McDonald's, Walmart, and Costco. Additionally, it was discovered that goods shipped worldwide by multinational corporations included prison labor, even in nations that Washington had recently imposed import bans on due to their own use of forced labor and prisons. (Photo/ AP)

As per a 2022 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, nearly every state and federal adult jail in the nation has some form of work program, providing employment opportunities for approximately 8,000,000. The great majority of those positions involve activities like cooking, cleaning, or maintaining prisons. (Photo/ AP)

They also are contracted out to private companies either directly from their prisons or through work-release programmes. They're often hired in industries with severe labour shortages, doing some of the country's dirtiest and most dangerous jobs like working in poultry plants, meat-processing centres and sawmills. (Photo/ AP)

​While prison labour seeps into the supply chains of some companies through third-party suppliers without them knowing, others buy direct. Cargill acknowledged buying goods from prison farms in Tennessee, Arkansas and Ohio, saying they constituted only a small fraction of the company's overall volume. (Photo/ AP)

Corrections officials and other proponents note that not all work is forced and that prison jobs save taxpayers money. They also say workers are learning skills that can be used when they're released and given a sense of purpose, which could help ward off repeat offenses. (Photo/ AP)