Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

Angus Growers has a zero-tolerance approach to slavery and human trafficking.

We actively promote and respect human rights within our business through a number of policies, procedures and processes. These include:

  • Acceptable Workplace Behaviour
  • Anti-bribery and Corruption
  • Ethical Trade and Human Rights
  • Equality and Diversity
  • Grievance
  • Modern Slavery Response Procedure
  • Preventing and Managing Risks of Hidden Labour Exploitation
  • Responsible Recruitment Policy

 

Our Ethical Trade and Human Rights policy, reviewed on an annual basis, is based on the principles of the ILO, (International Labour Organisation) and ETI, (Ethical Trade Initiative) Base Code. Policies and processes reflect our commitment to mitigating human rights risks and remediation of any adverse impacts that our business has caused or contributed to. We conduct our business in an ethical manner that focuses on human rights related to the provision of labour and working conditions throughout our supply chain, ensuring that people are treated fairly and that their human rights are protected and respected. This includes rights to fair pay, safe working conditions and protection from modern slavery. We seek to develop long term relationships with those businesses that share our ethical standards and are dedicated to working within the remit of this policy.

 

Due Diligence

We require all of our Members, and encourage our suppliers, to be members of SEDEX (the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange), maintain their SAQ (Self-Assessment Questionnaire), and to undertake an ethical audit based on risk, ideally a SMETA audit within an agreed timeframe by an approved third party auditor.

Incorporated into our initiatives to identify and address risks of modern slavery are systems that:

  • Develop, implement and train out relevant policies and procedures;
  • Improve recruitment and onboarding processes within our own business to reduce the risk of third parties engaged in exploitation infiltrating our business;
  • Improve awareness and understanding of modern slavery to enable identification of any modern slavery cases;
  • Enable an effective response to any suspected cases to protect victims;
  • Improve auditing, identification and mitigation of risk amongst our labour providers, including agency worker interviews;
  • Regular review of our human rights due diligence risk assessment to better identify and manage risks of modern slavery in our supply chain;
  • Identify and assess Base Code non-conformances through audit of labour providers and interviewing workers in our supply chain, including incorporating the anonymous direct reporting tool amongst our own workforce and that of our suppliers;
  • Mitigate the risk of slavery, human trafficking and other Base Code non-conformances by working with suppliers on CAPs, (corrective action plans);
  • Monitor potential risk areas in our supply chain through dialogue with our suppliers to understand the root causes and agree a course of action to resolve them; development and accessibility to bespoke learning interventions, the use of CAPs and follow up visits;

 

Monitoring and Reporting

We are proactive members of relevant forums such as and FNET (Food Network for Ethical Trade) and are proud to be a partner of Scotland Against Modern Slavery.

Dedicated to building long term supplier relationships, we seek to influence commitment to ethical trading practices and increase transparency in our supply chain.

 

Training

To maintain awareness and help us to prevent modern slavery or any human rights abuse, our employees have completed various learning interventions such as

  • Stronger Together ‘Tackling Modern Slavery in UK Businesses’
  • Stronger Together ‘Advanced Tackling Modern Slavery in UK Businesses’

 

We have also developed and delivered bespoke learning resources to meet identified training needs within our business and our international supply chain to build resilience and capacity.

 

Further steps

To enhance our approach to tackling modern slavery within our business and our supply chain, we will:

  • Continuously improve our policies and practices;
  • Publish an annual statement relating to each of the United Nations Guiding Principles Reporting Framework;
  • Further develop our training interventions to raise awareness within our business and our supply chain;
  • Further develop stakeholder relationships;
  • Continue to map our supply chain, incorporating our service providers;
  • Strive to remove worker paid recruitment fees from our supply chain.

 

Our statement is published in accordance with section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.