TREATING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE – THE ASF BERRY INTEGRITY APPROACH
Our Berry Integrity Mission is to promote human rights, mitigate against human rights risks and remediate against adverse impacts on human rights throughout our supply chain. We require our suppliers to comply with our Ethical Trade and Human Rights Policy, to promote the improvement of working conditions for the people who pick, pack, and deliver our berries.
We work collaboratively to share ideas and best practice within the industry to overcome today's challenges of mitigating against ethical risks in food production. For example, we are proactive members of FNET (Food Network for Ethical Trade) and the Spanish Ethical Forum.
We have identified strategic KPIs and we review our progress through the Stronger Together direct reporting tool. We are leading the way amongst others in the programme, clearly illustrating our investment and commitment to the programme.
WE ARE AN ADVANCED BUSINESS PARTNER OF STRONGER TOGETHER
We are a Stronger Together Advanced Business Partner which demonstrates our commitment to proactively tackling labour exploitation in our supply chain.
WE ARE CORPORATE PARTNERS OF SCOTLAND AGAINST MODERN SLAVERY
The corporate partner group has representation and participation within the Scottish Government’s Human Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy Team. Partners are also able to provide practical assistance by providing sustainable work to victims of modern slavery.
IDENTIFY AND IRRADICATE UNFAIR RECRUITMENT FEES FROM OUR SUPPLY CHAIN
We’re embedding the Responsible Recruitment Toolkit to drive ethical and professional recruitment within our supply chain. By benchmarking our progress against others, we are delighted that we are leading the way. Our progress illustrates positive impact on people’s working lives including:
- How they are recruited – removing the possibility of recruitment fees being charged and Having accurate information about the job;
- How they are paid – having accurate payslips and wages;
- Improving the quality of accommodation and transport offered to them;
- Having access to appropriate grievance mechanisms when there is an issue.
MAKE WORKER VOICE CENTRAL TO OUR OPERATIONAL DUE DILIGENCE PROCESSES BY 2025
Since 2019 we’ve conducted a series of employee surveys using the &Wider tool to facilitate an additional channel for “employee voice”. This has enabled us to address issues which may have not been identified otherwise.
Our worker committee seeks to be representative of employees across our business, having at least one representative from each of our sites, to enable us to improve the employment relationship within our company.
Leading by example, we are encouraging all our suppliers to adopt this approach to improve working conditions within our supply chain.
BUILD RESILIENCE AND CAPACITY OF OUR SUPPLIERS THROUGH BESPOKE LEARNING INTERVENTIONS BY 2025
We are conducting training needs analysis and have regular dialogue with all our suppliers so that we can provide practical support and a range of bespoke human rights due diligence resources which will have a positive impact on the working lives of their people.
