Promoting Social Responsibility In The Value Chain
Overview
Fair operating practice is a core component of social responsibility. Fair operating practices relate to ethical conduct in the Group’s dealings with other organisations, including the relationships between government agencies as well as between the Group and their partners, suppliers, contractors, customers, competitors, and the associations which Group companies are members. Behaving ethically is fundamental to establishing and sustaining legitimate and productive relationships between companies and through the promotion of social responsibility in the value chain, the Group is able to encourage other organisations to adopt similar policies.
Principles
Our corporate strategy is to maintain a sustainable value chain, which succeeds on shared values and is a critical component as it reflects our brand name and image. We provide systems, which ensure that all suppliers are screened on their track record and standpoint on sustainability issues such as environmental, social, behavioural, corruption, statutory compliance and human rights practices. The Group endevour to ensure that most of its suppliers share our common values for sustainability in our value chain.
Value chain management
The Group’s strategy is to ensure that all raw materials and resource procurement is conducted in a professional and transparent manner, meeting prescribed standards and quality. Our objective is to ensure that the Group procures raw materials in a sustainable way that minimises business risk. The Group places responsibility on management to ensure sustainable supply chain management in all our businesses, and also that our supply chain objectives are delivered in a sustainable manner.
The Group’s key raw materials are: maize, wheat, wheat bran, soya meal and soya beans. The quantities required by the Group are significant and the table below highlights the volumes consumed each year in production of our products.
The Group expects suppliers to operate in accordance with its values, adhering to national laws, international health and safety standards and ethics in the supply chain business relationships. We engage suppliers on our sustainability values through supplier briefings, meetings, audits and trainings. We create economic opportunities for small scale and previously disadvantaged groups in our supply chain as part of our inclusive business approach. We provide appropriate training to ensure that suppliers meet expected quality and standards. In managing risk, our suppliers are introduced to international standards requirements and evaluation criteria so as to sustain our brands, reputation, as well as to improve their own systems.
CONSUMER ISSUES
The consumer is fundamental to the Group’s business and their health and safety should not be compromised. Protecting consumers’ health and safety involves the provision of products and services that are safe and do not carry unacceptable risk of harm when used or consumed.
Principles
The Group ensures that its production facilities maintain the highest of standards that do not compromise on quality and safety of its consumers and employees. We take comprehensive preventative measures that ensure our production facilities meet the highest standards which allow responsible consumption of raw materials in our production processes. The Group adheres to the international standards ISO 9001 (Quality Management System), ISO 22000 (Food Safety Management System), ISO 14000:2015 (Environmental Management System); ISO 45000:2018 (Occupational Health & Safety Management System); ISO 17025 (competence of testing and calibration laboratories); and FSSC 22000 (Food Safety Management) to ensure quality and safety for our consumers.
Fair Marketing
Fair marketing allows customers to compare products, avoid misunderstandings due to misinformation and enhances customer satisfaction. The Group continues to promote fair marketing by ensuring that all our products contain all necessary information on the product for our consumers.
Our businesses monitor and review the safety of our products through our quality control units from raw material procurement, production all the way to our customers. We do this through customer satisfaction surveys and engagements. Our businesses work continuously to ensure that our products pose no risk to our customers, consumers, employees and the environment and that they are, and are seen to be used responsibly and in the manner intended. Our Strategy is to ensure that high standards are applied in the manufacturing and distribution. Our companies retained or attained their ISO 9001, ISO17025, ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 certification.
The Group continues to monitor any feedback from its customers, whether they were praises or complaints, and responds to any complaints received by rectifying the issues. On the whole our customers were satisfied with the quality of our products. Our brands received significantly higher rankings in the market in terms of awareness and satisfaction rating.
