View our previous Slavery and Human Trafficking Statements
This statement is made pursuant to section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It sets out the steps taken by Hovis Holdings Limited and its subsidiary companies, Hovis Limited and Rank Hovis Milling Limited, ("Hovis") during the financial year ending 31 December 2018 to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in its business and supply chains.
Hovis is an iconic household brand that has over 133 years' experience in the baking and milling industry. Our core values apply to everything we do and are centred on three key principles; quality, accountability and trust. We are proud of our heritage and our reputation and are committed to putting Hovis goodness at the heart of every day. We recognise that, to achieve this, we must adhere to the highest possible standards in everything we do. This commitment includes ensuring that people within our business and our supply chain are treated with dignity and respect and by taking proactive steps to tackle and prevent slavery, servitude and human trafficking.
Hovis is jointly owned by by The Gores Group (51%) and Premier Foods Group Limited (49%)
In 2018, Hovis operated as a baking and milling business. However, during 2018, Hovis disposed of the majority of its milling business, including (i) its grains, seeds and blends business Holgran; (ii) its bakery and ingredients business Flemming Howden; and (iii) its mills at Selby and Manchester. In addition, Hovis' Southampton mill ceased production in February 2019 and will be closed by June 2019. Hovis' mill at Wellingborough has been retained and will supply approximately 80% of flour used to produce our products, making us a fully integrated baking business going forwards.
Headquartered in High Wycombe we now employ around 2,800 employees in the United Kingdom. We also use agency labour in our manufacturing and logistics operations which is sourced both directly and through reputable recruitment agencies. We recognise and respect our employees' rights to join trade unions and to bargain collectively and we adopted a collaborative approach to working with trade unions within our business.
We have eight (8) bakeries in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland producing high quality bread and other bakery products. As detailed above, in light of the milling disposals and closure of the Southampton mill, we now have one (1) flour mill based in Wellingborough and two (2) regional distribution centres, enabling us to deliver over one million loaves every day of the week throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.
We work with over 1400 suppliers across our supply chain. Our direct suppliers supply ingredients and packaging for our products. The majority of our raw ingredients and packaging materials are sourced from suppliers based in the United Kingdom and Europe. Our indirect suppliers provide us with goods or services to support the day to day business operations, such as utilities, maintenance and office supplies.
Hovis will not tolerate modern slavery in its business or supply chain. We therefore have a number of policies, systems and controls in place to ensure that we are conducting our business in an ethical, responsible and transparent manner. All of the following policies are (or will be) readily available to employees and workers on Hovis' internal intranet system.
Forced labour, in any form, has no place in Hovis' operations and supply chains. Hovis has an Ethical Trading Statement in place, which is based around internationally recognised code of labour practices, setting out the minimum standards we expect all of our suppliers and business partners to adhere to.
Hovis is a member of SEDEX (the Supplier Ethical Trading Data Exchange), a not for profit membership organisation dedicated to driving improvements in ethical and responsible business practices in global supply chains. We require all ingredients and packaging suppliers to be members of this organisation to give us visibility of their ethical performance and aide the assessment of risk in our supply chain.
To ensure that Hovis' suppliers comply with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we include contractual 'anti-slavery' provisions in our agreements that require our suppliers to confirm to us that they have and continue to take steps to prevent modern slavery within their business and supply chain and to report any incidents or suspected incidents to us.
We work in conjunction with our suppliers to assess the risk of slavery and human trafficking in our supply chain and based on that assessment, and the fact that the majority of our suppliers are based in the UK and Europe, we consider the risk to be low. However, we recognise that our overall supply chain, particularly for ingredients, is complex with a global reach; therefore, we acknowledge that we must remain vigilant and are committed to continually improving our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking.
We have considered the risk of slavery and human trafficking in our operations, including via the use of agency labour, and we consider the risk to be low due to the robust recruitment and on boarding processes that we, and our recruitment agencies, abide by. Nonetheless, we keep our processes and procedures under regular review to ensure that they are consistently applied and adhered to.
Hovis underwent an extensive role out programme when the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force to ensure that the business' policies and processes were understood and embedded within our organisation.
In 2019 we intend to develop and implement a comprehensive training programme with the support of specialist external consultants to continue to raise awareness of slavery and trafficking and our policies and procedures. The training will initially be directed towards employees within the senior leadership team across our sites,
human resources who manage the relationship with our recruitment agencies and procurement who are primarily involved in contract management, service procurement and purchasing of raw materials.
In order to assess the effectiveness of the measures Hovis has implemented to tackle and prevent slavery and human trafficking taking place in any part of our business and supply chain, we will use the following key performance indicators:
This statement has been approved by the Board of Directors of Hovis Holding Limited, Hovis Limited and Rank Hovis Limited on 27 March 2019.
Nish Kankiwala
Director and CEO of Hovis Holdings Limited
Date: 27/03/2019
George Idicula
Director of Hovis Limited
Date: 27/03/2019
Lawrence Watson
Director of Rank Hovis Milling Limited
Date: 27/03/2019