2019 - 2020 CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT

1 Contents

Strategy and approach Our Focus Areas 22

Our Company 3 Our People 24 Our Vision 4 Safety 24 Highlights at a glance 5 Diversity 28 Stateside Foods Strategic Objectives 6 Employee Engagement 34 About Us - The Südzucker Group 8 Wellbeing 35 Values and Principles 10 Training and Development 38 UK Tax Strategy 11 Supplier Payment Policy 14 Privacy Statement 15 Our Products 45 Working Towards Global Goals 16 Award Winning Innovation 45 Our Challenges 17 Delivery Goals 45 Current Issues and Identified 18 Responsible sourcing 46 Business Risks Quality 47 Stateside Foods’ approach to 20 Food Safety 48 Creating Value Consumer Health 49

Our Environment 51 Packaging 52 Energy 54 Food Waste 57 Other Internal Waste 58 Water and Effluent 60 Carbon and Emissions 62 Supply Chain 64

Our Partners 66

Our Communities 75 Community 75 Education and School support 75 Young Enterprise 75 Feeding Britain’s Future 76 Stateside’s Skills for Success 77 Programme Greater Manchester Careers and 77 Enterprise adviser Network Community Organisations 78 Community Events 78 The Bolton Family 78 Charity and Fundraising 80

2 3 Our company

Stateside Foods has consistently grown ahead of materials and finished goods, and office facilities, the growth of the chilled pizza market, through our to accommodate all aspects of our business in one combined commitment to quality and significant location. investment in the business. Fresh pizza from Stateside Foods reaches customers A long history of sustained growth seven days a week from our state of the art facilities. Over the last 30 years, the growth of the Stateside Foods business has been impressive, and we currently Sustained investment in our future have 44% share by volume of the UK chilled pizza Through our expertise in engineering and efficiency, market. we produce the highest quality products at highly competitive prices. As a part of the Freiberger Group, who are the largest own label frozen pizza manufacturer in the world, We produce a wide choice of pizza products ranging Stateside Foods has been instrumental in helping from Value to Premium categories. Across our shape today’s UK chilled pizza market. facilities, we offer a variety of modern production processes. Through highly automated technology, We are primarily an own label supplier of chilled pizza coupled with our experienced workforce, we produce to the retail market. Through development, flair and high volume, consistent, quality pizza alongside innovation, Stateside has become a major partner to premium hand crafted products. Our operations meet the UK retailers. the highest standards in food manufacturing.

With improvements in efficiency, we have been Our business utilises cutting edge systems across all able to meet and exceed our customers’ growing departments from manufacturing, quality, planning, expectations. engineering and logistics.

A solid philosophy Committed to quality The four company values are Efficiency, People, Stateside Foods is Grade AA+ accredited to the BRC Innovation and Quality. Global Standard for Food Safety. (see page 47)

Efficiency - Our aim is to produce products that are BRC is an internationally recognised standard used by of the best quality and consistency in the market most of the major UK retailers. It is an assessment by place. We achieve this through a combination of high independent auditors, allowing for an unbiased audit volume production, rigorous cost control, together of our systems and standards. with investment in capital equipment and controlled production processes run by a highly skilled and We view this accreditation as an important tool to motivated team. maintain and develop our high standards in food safety across every aspect of our operation. We also People – Our people are our most valued asset and are expect our suppliers to adhere to this standard. at the heart of everything we do. About this report Innovation – A key process in the business It is important to our employees, shareholders, development, taking us to the cutting edge of the suppliers, customers and our community, that industry in operational processes, manufacturing Stateside Foods is run in an ethical and sustainable systems and product. manner. We are committed to providing a comprehensive report on our social, economic and Quality - Our quality management system environmental impacts and on the progress of encompasses all aspects of our organisation with our efforts in working towards the UN’s Global clearly defined objectives, which are set to meet our Sustainable Development Goals. customers’ requirements and to achieve the long term goals of the company. Additionally, we are committed to reviewing progress made over the last 12 months and targets for coming Stateside Foods production facilities are based at periods that we wish to achieve. Westhoughton, in Bolton, Lancashire, where the company has factory facilities covering 20 acres. This report covers the period from March 2019 to The site contains two factories, storage for raw February 2020. 3 4

Our Vision Our core principles remain the same, and will do so for many years. 2019-20 Our overriding focus has to be to be a commercially successful and highly profitable business. Without this, there will be no business.

Within the framework of a successful business, we continue to be driven by our ethical standards and our belief in our need to be an environmentally sustainable business.

Our people are managed through our Values and Behaviours - principles against which all employees are measured and challenged.

From a sustainability perspective, it is key that we continue to look at ways to minimise our environmental impact. This approach can often be uncertain and lead us up many cul-de-sacs, but without this approach, we 2019 saw many successes will not progress. as Stateside Foods set Our Investors in People Gold status remains a constant themselves challenges with and we want to improve on this. Our ISO50001 accreditation drives a seriesof KPIs to help us manage sustainability at the core. Our our business and drive down our unit costs. During Managing Director, Jon Lucas, the year, the positive movement in our KPIs has not appeared to be as impressive as we would have hoped reflects on our progress, and for. This is as a result in a change in product mix in the business, which occurred over the last two years and how the decisions we make has now seen completion in February 2020. now can make a long term We continue to measure ourselves against the United difference to our shared Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals - and this future. gives us plenty of scope to improve. We continue to be strong innovators in our market - both in terms of product and process; our aim being to be able to differentiate us and our customers from the competition. Our innovation continues to drive heavy capital expenditure in the business.

4 Managers passed Level 2 CMI YEAR 7 qualifications Managers passed Level 3 CMI IN 6 qualifications

Apprentices enrolled 2019-20 REVIEW on our Chartered Management Degree 19 Apprenticeship Since the addition of our non- engineering apprenticeships in New apprentices 2013, we have increased accepted and starting our apprentice 5 on the September 2020 numbers from 6 to Chartered Manager Degree 27 Apprenticeship £36,574 Given by Stateside Foods to local schools, charities and community projects

Apprentices currently £4055 enrolled and training on our Raised by Stateside Foods staff for charities and Engineering Apprenticeships community projects of their choice 8 1021 1303 Christmas hampers given High School and college students out to staff to say thank in the Greater Manchester area you for their hard work that we have worked with through throughout the year Stateside’s Skills for Success programme

Long service awards presented to our staff for 5, 10, 15 and 20 years 104 of service

5 Stateside Foods Strategic Objective Map

The Goal

Diverse Customer Critical Success Control of Portfolio that Delivers Factors Costs Volume Sales

Consistent Strategic Product Future Quality Good Debt Planning Collection

Right Image in Good Raw the Eyes of the Necessary Material Customer Conditions Specification

Effective Good Buying Operational (at the Right Cost Controls Price and Quality)

Not Over Good Process Control That Trading Handles Complexity

6 Stateside Foods Strategic Objective Map

Maximising Long Term Shareholder Value

Empowering People Customer Delivering the Business Minimising Business Satisfaction Goals and Targets Risk

Category Employee Management to Wellbeing each Account Effective Training and Career Selling at the Development Right Price Health & Safety

A Clearly Defined management Structure Excellent New Product (where people understand Development Process accountability and decision making power)

Control of Customer Expectations (in relation to Volume, Days, Products, Terms and the Effective Capabilities of the Business Teamwork and Communication

7 The Group European Sites

USA Sites

8 7

The Freiberger Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Südzucker AG, one of the largest food manufacturing companies in Europe.

Südzucker is a major German food group operating across the globe. Employing 19,200 people and with annual turnover in 2019-20 of €6.7 billion, Südzucker is one of the largest food groups in Europe, with businesses in sugar, special products including frozen and chilled pizza, CropEnergies and fruit. In the traditional sugar business, the group is Europe’s number one supplier of sugar products.

Südzucker has more than 100 production locations world-wide including Freiberger - the parent company of Stateside Foods.

Visit http://www.suedzucker.de/en/Homepage/ for more information on this global organisation.

For more than 40 years, the Freiberger Group has developed and produced chilled and frozen pizza for the international retail trade. Frozen snacks, baguettes and pasta dishes complete their product range.

Since 1998, the Freiberger Group has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Südzucker AG and has achieved worldwide success. Today, the group includes companies at 11 locations throughout Europe and the USA. Around the world, you’ll find many different ways to make a pizza base. Freiberger excels at all of them - from traditional dough balling and roll-out methods, to sheet & cut and pan, all the way to our own patented processes.

Our highly innovative production technologies have set standards. Within a short time, we can develop and produce any pizza, pasta and baked good at competitive prices; for the success of our customers.

Visit http://www.freiberger.de/freiberger/en.html for more information on this global leader.

Founded in 1862, Richelieu Foods, Inc. is a private label food company with a rich history. Widely known in the food and supermarket industry for its superior array of private label products, Richelieu is comprised of three principal business segments:

Retail Frozen & Deli Pizza, Retail Dressings and Sauces, and Foodservice Dressings and Sauces.

Richelieu Foods provides the highest quality products and services with competitive pricing for our Retail and Corporate Brands. Richelieu Foods is headquartered in Braintree, Massachusetts, and operates four manufacturing facilities across the MidWest.

Visit http://richelieufoods.com/ for more information. 9 8

Südzucker Group Values and Principles

Business Values and Principles Südzucker aims to compete successfully through innovation, quality, reliability and fairness. This entails complying with internal company rules, as well as statutory regulations. A series of corporate compliance principles serve as a guideline. They highlight key issues that are very important in day-to- day corporate practice:

Compete fairly Südzucker is fully committed to compete fairly, and especially to comply with antitrust laws.

Integrity in business transactions Corruption is not tolerated. Gifts and invitations from suppliers must always be in reasonable proportion to the business relationship. Such gratuities require express approval from the respective supervisor. This applies to all employees who are part of any procurement process. The same principles apply in reverse to employees working in the various sales departments, in relation to our customers.

Sustainability principle Südzucker is aware of its responsibility to protect the environment, as well as the health and safety of people inside and outside the company.

Compliance with food and agricultural industry laws Compliance with all relevant national, European and international laws – especially food and agricultural laws – is mandatory.

Ensuring equal opportunity in securities trading Every employee is obliged to treat confidentially any internal company information that could impact the company’s share price on the stock market, and to not trade in company shares.

Proper documentation The company’s internal control system requires that the business process be adequately documented. Audits must be conducted to ensure that the accounting-related information has been fully and correctly captured.

Proper and transparent financial reporting Südzucker commits to providing open and transparent financial reports based on international accounting standards to ensure that all stakeholders are treated equally.

Fair and respectful working conditions Each employee is expected to be friendly and to treat colleagues and third parties fairly, professionally and respectfully. Discrimination and harassment of any type is not tolerated.

10 9

Südzucker Group – UK Tax Strategy

This UK Tax Strategy statement applies to all UK legal entities of Südzucker Group. The publication of this document is regarded as satisfying the requirements of Finance Act 2016 Schedule 19, paragraph 16. This document is effective for the financial year ending 29 February 2020 and will be reviewed annually and updated as necessary.

At Südzucker Group, we attach great importance to responsible and sustainable company management. In particular, Südzucker Group strives towards exemplary company management in the sense of effective Corporate Governance, as well as sustainable risk management. This helps Südzucker Group to determine long-term strategic decisions in an appropriate way.

Corporate Responsibility is also a pre-eminent concern of Südzucker Group. Furthermore, Südzucker Group’s Compliance Directive binds our management and staff to act in an ethically and legally impeccable manner.

In terms of our attitude towards taxation, Südzucker Group is a fair and reliable partner to its clients, its employees, its shareholders and all other external regulatory compliance parties (incl. HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”)). We are committed to acting in a prudent and responsible manner. We are an open, transparent and dependable taxpayer. Tax Risk Management and Governance

Governance Overall responsibility for governance and tax risk management within the Südzucker Group rests with the Head of Group Function, Corporate Taxes (the “Tax function”). The Tax function facilitates investment in continuing professional development, application of standardized processes and a consistent tax policy across the Südzucker Group. The Tax function ensures that expertise and guidance is available for all major tax disciplines and jurisdictions.

The Tax function is part of the Finance function, which reports to the Group’s Chief Financial Officer and indirectly to Chief Executive Officer.

A Senior Accounting Officer (“SAO”), as determined by legislation is responsible for ensuring each UK legal entity establishes and maintains appropriate accounting and tax compliance arrangements. The SAO of Stateside Foods is Managing Director, Jon Lucas.

Tax risk management and tax risk appetite The Südzucker Group operates worldwide and is exposed to a variety of tax risks. The Südzucker Group aims to manage tax risks in a similar way to any area of operational risks across the Südzucker Group. The business is supported by oversight functions, including the Tax function and Internal Audit.

Südzucker Group monitors the activities and responsibilities of the Tax function. The Südzucker Group will continue to look at resourcing and will assess headcount within the function as the scale and complexity of the business evolves. 11 10 Südzucker Group – UK Tax Strategy continued

Where appropriate, Südzucker Group looks to engage with tax authorities to disclose and resolve issues, risks and uncertain tax positions. The subjective nature of global tax legislation means that it is often not possible to mitigate all known tax risks. As a result, at any given time, the Südzucker Group may be exposed to financial and reputational risks arising from its tax affairs.

As with our broader business risk appetite, we have a low tolerance towards tax risks (across all taxes). We seek to minimize the risk of a dispute with HMRC by being open and transparent about our tax affairs. The Companies seek to attain a low UK tax risk rating as determined by HMRC Business Risk Review process.

The tax consequences of significant transactions (incl. internal restructuring and changes to IT systems) will be subject to a detailed review from a tax perspective. Wherever relevant, we would also seek the opinion of external advisors to ensure that the tax impact of any transaction is aligned with Südzucker Group’s responsibilities.

Tax Planning Südzucker Group does not enter into any aggressive tax planning or support the use of artificial structures that are established solely to avoid paying tax and have no business purpose. Südzucker Group’s tax planning is aligned with its commercial business and economic activities.

Südzucker Group actively engages in and supports the development of a rules-based international tax framework. Südzucker Group looks to tax policy makers to implement international tax reforms in a coherent, coordinated way so that there is a level playing field and the risk of paying tax twice on the same income is minimized. In particular, Südzucker Group supports the OECD international tax reform work on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS).

Südzucker Group is committed to maintaining an open and honest dialogue with regulators. It is Südzucker Group’s policy to provide transparent and comprehensive information to tax administrations in order to facilitate their understanding of the tax-related decisions taken by Südzucker Group.

Südzucker Group operates throughout the world. As a result, there are many transactions between Südzucker Group companies. In line with internationally recognized standards for cross border transactions, the pricing for these transactions must reflect an arm’s-length price. The pricing is driven by the activities undertaken and the value created. This approach is consistently taken in all countries where Südzucker Group operates.

Südzucker Group maintains a Compliance Directive which is the cornerstone of everything we do, including the approach to tax planning.

Tax Risks Südzucker Group sees compliance with tax legislation as key to managing our tax risk. We understand the importance of tax in the wider context of business decisions and have processes in place to ensure tax is considered as part of our decision making process.

12 Südzucker Group maintains internal policies and procedures to support its tax control framework and employs professionals that are experienced in identification and management of tax risk with additional support provided through ongoing training and input of external advisors when appropriate.

Südzucker Group maintains relationships with professional advisers that allow us to seek expert advice on specialist areas of tax. Our approach is to ensure we are compliant and understand our responsibilities with regards to tax.

Südzucker is conscious of the negative publicity that can arise from an inappropriate tax policy, and sees strong internal controls and a good relationship with our professional advisors and tax authorities as the best way to manage reputational risk.

Relationship with HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) Südzucker Group is committed to the principles of openness and transparency with the tax authorities worldwide. Each UK legal entity engages with HMRC with integrity and respect and works collaboratively to resolve disputes [and obtain agreement].

The UK legal entities have regular, open dialogue and meetings with HMRC. Day-to-day interactions with the HMRC CRM team are managed by the UK Senior Accounting Officer of each of the UK companies.

The Südzucker Group seeks to comply with its tax filing, tax reporting and tax payment obligations worldwide. Each UK legal entity is required to foster good relationships with HMRC. In particular, Südzucker Group’s Tax function will:

• Pro-actively manage Südzucker Group’s relationship with HMRC with the aim of minimizing the risk of challenge, dispute or damage to its credibility • Participate in any tax authority formal consultation process where it is expected that the matter under consultation will have a material impact on the Südzucker Group’s liability or the Südzucker Group’s compliance management

Südzucker acknowledges a responsibility to pay an appropriate amount of tax in the countries where the Südzucker Group operates. The Südzucker Group will aim to balance this with the responsibility to our shareholders to structure the Südzucker Group’s operations in an efficient manner. Tax regulations and tax incentives may be one of several economic factors taken into consideration when structuring our operations. In certain instances where significant uncertainty or complexity is involved, we will seek external advice.

In summary, Südzucker Group is committed to ensuring it pays the right amount of tax in the UK and to working collaboratively with HMRC.

13 12

Stateside Foods Supplier Payment Policy

Stateside Foods are committed to the prompt payment of suppliers. We value strong, stable and co-operative relationships with our suppliers, and acknowledge our responsibility to support our suppliers, enabling them to operate sustainably and in a healthy way. By working efficiently and effectively with our supply chain partners, we in turn help to make the UK economy more competitive in the world market.

We have a clear management policy on prompt payment of bills and we ensure that all staff are aware of it, especially but not only, those in finance and purchasing. We agree terms of payment at the start of all contracts and we monitor our payment system regularly for timely payment of invoices.

Our standard payment terms are 45 days and as our due payments are processed weekly, rather than monthly, we achieve an average supplier payment period of 33 days. This is significantly lower than the agreed period. There have been no changes to the standard payment terms during the period of this report.

Dispute Resolution Stateside Foods have a clear process in place to work with suppliers in a timely manner to resolve all disputes quickly and effectively. Disputes with suppliers are looked at in a balanced way to ensure a mutually beneficial outcome can be achieved. We invest a lot of time and effort in developing our suppliers in tandem with our business - an open and honest relationship is our preferred strategy.

14 13

Stateside Foods Privacy Statement

Stateside Foods are committed to protecting the privacy of those individuals that we work with or have dealings with through business operations, and we recognise the need for the protection and management of any information that is shared with us.

We operate in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulations in May 2018.

Our website can be visited without revealing any personal information - except in the instance of an application for a job vacancy. We shall not sell or disclose any information such as e-mail address to third parties without the prior consent of the owner of the information.

We are as clear and open as possible about what we do and why we do it. Our Privacy Policy is publicly available on our website; this policy regulates the use by Stateside Foods of any information provided to us by applicants, employees or other information required by us during the course of day-to-day business, i.e. from suppliers and customers.

We collect only information that has been given to us by the individual, supplier or customer. We only have what we need to manage the contract and Stateside Foods’ relationship with individuals and their company.

We may use information where necessary to carry out our business, to maintain and test our computer systems, to comply with our legal and contractual obligations, and to protect our property and assets.

More details can be found by visiting http://www.stateside-foods.co.uk/privacy-statement/

15 The UN Sustainable Development Goals are Our Goals

16 Our Challenges

Safety at Work The safety of our employees, contractors and members of the public, is Stateside Foods’ first priority. Highlights of our robust safety policy and targets are set out in the People section of this report. We are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at Stateside Foods is provided with the necessary training and equipment, to perform their job safely. We have a clear health and safety strategy which is periodically reviewed by the Board of executive Directors in the Corporate Health and Safety meetings. In those meetings, strategy is reviewed and fine tuned as deemed appropriate.

Climate Change The Environment section of this report outlines the systems and processes we have put in place to optimize our resource usage and reduce our emissions and set challenging targets.

Waste We are constantly looking at new ways to reduce waste across the business. We are proud to have been a ‘zero to landfill’ site since 2015, (see Our Environment section). Our future plans are to continue.

Economic Development Stateside Foods is committed to creating jobs and educating local young people and adults, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to work in the food manufacturing industry. We believe that education leads to improving living conditions sustainably.

Human Rights Both child labour and forced labour can be issues within the food and drink manufacture supply chain. We are a committed member of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX) and we follow the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) base code. More details can be seen in the Our People and Our Partners sections of this report.

Diversity We have many measures in place to ensure there are no discriminatory imbalances at Stateside Foods in terms of both ethnicity and gender. See more in the Our People section of this report.

Working in Partnership The UN Sustainable Development Goals 11 and 17, highlight the importance of working together with our customers, suppliers and other stakeholders to achieve all of the other goals. Understanding our value chains and influencing our supply chain is impossible if we don’t work together. Whether learning from the expertise of others, discussing challenges and policies, or sharing best practices, we must engage with one another in order to succeed. 17 16

Current Issues and Identified Business Risks

The world changed dramatically in 2020 and the previous identified issues and risks were over-taken by the Coronavirus global pandemic. Whilst both Brexit and Climate Change, discussed on our 2018- 2019 report are still extremely important to Stateside Foods, in the time between the end of the reporting period and the release of this report, our fundamental priority became the safety of our staff, maintaining supply for our customers and communicating effectively, whilst always acting with integrity.

Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 As the information on the numbers of people affected and the realisation of the potential impact on the world began to come to light, Stateside Foods appointed a Senior Management Team to review all aspects of the future effects.

Action Taken The team identified almost 50 projects across the whole business that needed investigation and planning. These were briefed to the relevant teams in each area, with tight deadlines for feedback and implementation. These projects and actions included:- • Business Risk Assessment in place, supported by a Stateside Coronavirus Handbook, • raw material sourcing and effect on imports and UK supply, • new absence logging process and database to track absence, with daily care calls to all those suffering from Coronavirus symptoms, • resource and staff planning - in the peak months, all internal and external customer projects were cancelled and staff redeployed to manage high absenteeism, this was further supported by increased recruitment and agency in some areas,

18 17

• all office staff able to work from home are doing so, more office space opened up to enforce social distancing and screens have been placed in some offices the security buildings and reception,

• bespoke screens have been implemented in highly populated production areas – production was suspended in these areas, until these were in place,

• temperature sensors placed at all site entrances to deny access to anyone with possible coronavirus symptoms

• cohorts set up across the site and measures put in place to avoid transmission between areas and shifts; staggered breaks and start times, to ensure shifts don’t mix, new car sharing rules have been introduced, new canteen areas created to limit numbers

• PPE stocks and potential contingencies, plus new face shield research and implementation, new additional hygiene processes and auditing to include extra sanitising stations and hand sanitisers across the business,

• introduction of the wearing of facemasks in both production and office areas across site

• stopping business travel and non-essential visitors on site,

• new process to keep a central log of all employee’s travel for holidays – UK and abroad to ensure quarantine rules are adhered to,

• new signage across site displaying the key messages and rules

• immediate workforce and business communications on government updates, guidance and Stateside’s new processes,

• new electronic newsletter, to inform staff of all business messages – good and bad,

• new mental health programme introduced across the business, including new mental health first aiders and awareness training for all managers.

19 16

Current Issues and Identified Business Riskscontinued

Brexit The uncertainty continues and no deal has yet been reached with the EU, therefore the Brexit Team continue to make preparations for continuation of supply and also to protect those EU employees affected.

Action Taken Employees EU nationals that wish to stay in the UK and working for Stateside have been supported to obtain settled status. Continued automation projects, help us manage the reduce pool of employees available to us.

Export into EU We are arranging veterinary approval for our raw materials to obtain EU approval into the EU.

Importing Raw Materials In order for us to be less dependent on certain overseas suppliers, we are looking at the in-house preparation of some raw materials, and sourcing raw materials from UK suppliers in preference to EU suppliers, where possible. In addition to this, we are increasing our raw material stock holding, to mitigate the risk of in-bound delays at ports.

With regard to difficulties in port clearance, we have applied to become an Authorised Economic Operator, meaning that our incoming materials can be checked and reviewed at our factory site by customs officials. We have also improved the loading of our trucks to reduce wasted capacity, resulting in fewer trucks coming through our ports.

We are in detailed conversation with a series of advisers, including accountants, solicitors, customs brokers and HR consultants. We are researching the work that we will need to produce with regards to import customs declarations, in conjunction with HM Customs and our customs broker.

We have identified imports that are likely to be subject to duty and we are in discussions with our customers to agree how we can mitigate these additional costs.

To mitigate foreign exchange risk, which will inevitably arise once we leave the EU, we are looking at medium term currency hedging.

20 17

Climate Change Despite the two issue mentioned above; the global pandemic and Brexit, Stateside Foods is pleased that it has not lost its focus on this area.

Action Taken We have still been able to champion our packaging reducing programme across all customers and lobby for our film to be labelled as recyclable. This in turn pushes more suitable recycling facilities to become available in the UK. This agreement and labelling change, now means that all our consumer packaging is suitable for recycling. We are continuing to work to identify alternative methods of energy supply.

21 Creating Value Our Vision Our Values Our Behaviours To be commercially successful, constantly improving business Efficiency Delivering Business Results Aiming to Continually Innovate & Improve performance. Our aim is for our success to benefit not only our People Communicating Effectively Leading Others Innovation Promoting Teamwork Being reliable shareholders, but our people and their communities too. Quality Being Self-Motivated Acting with Integrity

Inputs Business Activities Outputs Outcomes

Capitals Components Environment Key products, Impact on of value creation Products ISO 50001 solutions and impact stakeholders • Over 1000 trained employees with key ‘Focus In’ boards • Trained staff with professional Green electricity skills and business knowledge qualifications Maximising long-term • Robust IT systems for safe storage of • 13 new managers passed CMI levels 2 Intellectual Continuous Improvement shareholder value information and business operations Zero to landfill site and 3 • Safety, security, health and • Minimised business risk environmental protection audits Responsible Sourcing Reputation as a Focus on removal of plastic manufacturer of high • Sustained investment from parent Customer service • Revenue of £159m quality products company Monitoring of waste streams • Effective Control of costs Quality Culture • 74 new ideas submitted through the Shared goals Financial Employee Suggestion Scheme Food safety Partners Environmental protection Supporting local suppliers Ethical trading Improved mental • £4.9m invested in property, plant and • Award winning, high quality products health and wellbeing of equipment Sustainability Forum • Product consistency Innovation • State of the art Manufacturing facilities involvement employees Manufactured • Diverse customer portfolio Cost Control processes SEDEX membership Motivated and valued workfore Operator Asset Care Stronger Together • Over 40 suppliers • Customer satisfaction Meaningful employment • Raw material suplier sites audited on • 1303 young people received career Social / sustainability standards and employment skills education • External support partnerships for Corporate Governance Employee’s sense of Relationship Engineering and IT systems purpose • Access to external compliance hotlines People Job security • Over 1000 employees, 27 of which are CMI Training • 70% promotions from within the apprentices Communities business Community engagement • Development opportunities for all Management Training Stateside’s Skills • Investors in People Gold meaning we become the Human employees for Success schools • Empowered people, delivering the • Onsite training facilities business goal and targets Employer of choice Apprenticeships programme • Reduced staff turnover Inspired young people in Excellent Benefits Package Feeding Britain’s Future our community • Electricity demand Reductions in carbon emissions • Gas usage GM Careers and Reduction in waste • water usage Health & wellbeing Clean water output Natural programme’State of Mind’ Enterprise Adviser Network Health & Safety Culture Charity support Promoting Diversity Community sponsorship 22 Equal Pay Creating Value Our Vision Our Values Our Behaviours To be commercially successful, constantly improving business Efficiency Delivering Business Results Aiming to Continually Innovate & Improve performance. Our aim is for our success to benefit not only our People Communicating Effectively Leading Others Innovation Promoting Teamwork Being reliable shareholders, but our people and their communities too. Quality Being Self-Motivated Acting with Integrity

Inputs Business Activities Outputs Outcomes

Capitals Components Environment Key products, Impact on of value creation Products ISO 50001 solutions and impact stakeholders • Over 1000 trained employees with key ‘Focus In’ boards • Trained staff with professional Green electricity skills and business knowledge qualifications Maximising long-term • Robust IT systems for safe storage of • 13 new managers passed CMI levels 2 Intellectual Continuous Improvement shareholder value information and business operations Zero to landfill site and 3 • Safety, security, health and • Minimised business risk environmental protection audits Responsible Sourcing Reputation as a Focus on removal of plastic manufacturer of high • Sustained investment from parent Customer service • Revenue of £159m quality products company Monitoring of waste streams • Effective Control of costs Quality Culture • 74 new ideas submitted through the Shared goals Financial Employee Suggestion Scheme Food safety Partners Environmental protection Supporting local suppliers Ethical trading Improved mental • £4.9m invested in property, plant and • Award winning, high quality products health and wellbeing of equipment Sustainability Forum • Product consistency Innovation • State of the art Manufacturing facilities involvement employees Manufactured • Diverse customer portfolio Cost Control processes SEDEX membership Motivated and valued workfore Operator Asset Care Stronger Together • Over 40 suppliers • Customer satisfaction Meaningful employment • Raw material suplier sites audited on • 1303 young people received career Social / sustainability standards and employment skills education • External support partnerships for Corporate Governance Employee’s sense of Relationship Engineering and IT systems purpose • Access to external compliance hotlines People Job security • Over 1000 employees, 27 of which are CMI Training • 70% promotions from within the apprentices Communities business Community engagement • Development opportunities for all Management Training Stateside’s Skills • Investors in People Gold meaning we become the Human employees for Success schools • Empowered people, delivering the • Onsite training facilities business goal and targets Employer of choice Apprenticeships programme • Reduced staff turnover Inspired young people in Excellent Benefits Package Feeding Britain’s Future our community • Electricity demand Reductions in carbon emissions • Gas usage GM Careers and Reduction in waste • water usage Health & wellbeing Clean water output Natural programme’State of Mind’ Enterprise Adviser Network Health & Safety Culture Charity support Promoting Diversity Community sponsorship 23 Equal Pay 24

Our Focus

Our People Our Products Our Environment Our Partners Our Communities

24 19

Our Focus

We have aligned our focus areas with those of our customers, employees and other stakeholders. It is important that we address all of these issues equally, considering each of them in every decision we make.

We are working hard to increase awareness throughout the business, so that there is an understanding that each and every member of our team has a part to play in ensuring the impact we have is a positive one, not only for the business, but also for our employees, our customers, our environment and our communities.

By considering all of these things, we can continue in our goal to tackle the issues identified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

25 19 Our People

At Stateside Foods, we want business growth to benefit employees and their families. Our primary concern is the safety of everyone who works at Stateside Foods, but beyond this we believe that the education, development and wellbeing of our employees are important factors which will help us to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eliminate poverty, create decent jobs and aid economic growth.

Safety Stateside Foods focuses on embedding a safety culture in the day-to-day work of every single person who works with or for our company. Health and Safety Champions Committees meet monthly. Each committee has worker representatives from all operational areas. The aim is to identify health, safety and operational issues and manage any issues raised locally and feed these in for company-wide consideration.

Issues that require a strategic approach, may be referred to the Corporate Health and Safety Committee. The Corporate Health and Safety Committee meets monthly and is attended by the Managing Director, Operations Director and Heads of Engineering, Production and Logistics departments and the Health & Safety Manager.

The Health and Safety Champions Committees and escalation to senior managers and directors is a consultation process aimed to provide access for workers across all areas of the business. Every employee has a voice in our mission to reduce our lost time injuries to zero.

Our passion for Continuous Improvement is reflected in our targets to reduce the frequency and seriousness of accidents year-on-year.

26 27 We are pleased to report that although some accidents still occur, 80% of accidents were considered to be minor and we have a zero rate of work-related fatalities.

Results 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20

Total injuries 113 99 86

Lost time injuries 19 14 16

Lost days due to injury 341 232 86

Reduction in accidents from previous year 22% 12% 13%

Results over previous 5 years

27 Our People continued

Reducing risks Inherent in our bakery process, is the use of flour. Airborne flour dust has been identified as a respiratory sensitiser. The Workplace Exposure Limit of airborne flour dust set by HSE is 2mg/m3. Given these factors, there is a management requirement for exposures to be reduced as low as reasonably practicable. The company continuously strives to reduce the generation of dust at source. In addition, we work to install systems that reduce dust once it has become airborne. We operate significantly within legal tolerance and limits.

Periodically we review our status with third party audits, measuring airborne flour dust and our workforce’s exposure to it.

The emission of noise from plant and machinery in a manufacturing environment is inevitable. In noisy environments, we supply hearing protectors, and with high noise areas we take measures to minimise exposure to that environment, whether hearing protection is used or not. The company is continuously updating plant and equipment with the latest technology for safety, quality and efficiency. The generation of workplace noise is taken into account when designing new work places and purchasing new plant and equipment.

Third party audits of noise levels are a key aspect in our process with workplace and plant design. Our surveys have identified no exposure above the legal level when ear protectors are needed, however, Stateside Foods provides hearing protection for use in all production areas, to simply maximise staff comfort. Machine rooms where noise is higher, are kept secure from unauthorised entry and the wearing of hearing protection is mandatory.

28 In addition to continuously strenghtening company policies and processes, our senior management team have driven a health and safety programme, prioritising practical solutions aimed at having the greatest impact on reducing accidents within their departments. The expansion of the company premises continues to produce challenges, so a major part of the work completed by the team has included project safety.

The installation of new automated product handling machinery has vastly reduced the need for manual handling by staff, and changes in the layout of production areas has significantly reduced operational risks. Further improvements are planned for the coming year.

29 20 Our People continued

Diversity Diversity is one of our main challenges and we continue to monitor data across the main metrics of age, nationality and gender, to assess how we manage this.

We work to ensure that we do not discriminate against people or culture. We have systems in place to ensure that discriminatory acts are logged. There have been no acts of discrimination to report. Stateside Foods is committed to an equal opportunities and diversity policy.

Although we have a very diverse workforce in terms of nationalities, with 44 represented within the company overall, there is still room to improve diversity across other dimensions.

The charts below illustrate the diversity of the different areas of the business. Greater numbers of nationalities are present in the production and warehouse departments than in any other area and we are mindful that work needs to be done in order to increase numbers of ethnic minorities working in senior positions. Understandably, the first level management are older, as these roles require experience, but it is also interesting to note that the Engineering department are generally older workers, due in part, to the recent shortages of young students focussing on the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects. Because of this, we are working hard to introduce young people to Engineering through our apprenticeship schemes.

Nationality, by department, 2019

30 21

Age, by department, 2019

31 Our People continued

The following graphs give details of our gender profile, comparing office based support services with our operational and engineering areas; they illustrate the significantly higher proportion of female employees in office based support services (which include Human Resources, Finance, New Product Development and Quality Assurance), versus operational areas of Production, Warehouse and Engineering.

32 22 Actions to promote inclusion and diversity are ongoing and include: • Efforts to build awareness of issues relating to diversity among business managers through educational programmes.

• Family-oriented benefits, such as childcare schemes and enhanced maternity pay.

• Multi-faith prayer rooms on-site.

• All engineering apprentices brought into the business are aged 16 - 24.

• Stateside Food’s extensive ‘State of Mind’ Mental Health and Wellbeing package for all staff

Gender Pay Gap Stateside Foods are an equal pay employer. Gender pay gap is distinct from equal pay, as all employees are paid the same rate for doing the same job. There is no difference between the rates paid to men and women.

The differences in the distribution of males and females in different areas of the business, seen above, have led to an overall mean gender pay gap of 13.1% as departments such as the senior team are predominantly male. We recognise the need to achieve a more balanced split at senior level, and are actively seeking to increase the number of female senior managers.

Pay Information

2017 2018 2019 Mean gender pay gap % 10.7 13.2 13.1 Median gender pay gap % 15.8 12.8 9.5

Stateside Foods Ltd’s gender pay gap is significantly lower than the UK median gender pay gap of 17.3% for 2019 for all employees.

Quartiles

No. of employees No. / % No. / % No. / % No. / % No. / % No. / % Male Male Male Female Female Female 2017 2018 2019 2017 2018 2019 2017 2018 2019 Lower 221 251 273 134 61% 187 74% 152 56% 87 39% 64 26% 121 44% Quartile Lower Middle 221 252 273 166 75% 185 73% 187 69% 55 25% 67 27% 86 31% Quartile Upper Middle 221 252 273 181 82% 181 72% 218 80% 40 18% 71 28% 55 20% Quartile Upper 220 251 272 177 78% 177 71% 212 78% 49 22% 74 29% 60 22% Quartile

33 Our People continued23

Bonus Information The mean gender bonus pay gap percentage is 73.4%

The median gender bonus pay gap percentage is 0%

What we are doing to improve our Gender Pay Gap? There is no pay difference between men and women carrying out the same work. The main reason that we have a gender pay gap is that we do not have sufficient numbers of females at higher levels within the business.

We are actively looking at ways to address this gender split throughout our business, and have a range of initiatives in place to do this.

Flexible working We support all of our employees through shared parental leave, job sharing, part-time opportunities where we can practically facilitate this, ‘keeping in touch’ and flexible working arrangements. Employees are able to request flexible working such as part-time working and shorter days - consideration is given to this along with the specific business needs in their roles.

Recruitment As an employer we want to employ the best person for the job and pay competitive rates to attract talent.

We are an equal pay employer and pay employees the same rates of pay for the same grade regardless of sex. As we grow we will continue to offer fair equitable pay to all of our employees.

We currently recruit new employees based on our employee behaviours, which reduces unconscious bias and ensures that we have a fair and inclusive recruiting process.

We aim to fill 70% of vacancies from within the business through development and promotion of our people and in order to achieve this, all vacancies are advertised internally.

Employee Benefits We are further enhancing our employee benefits offerings with enhanced maternity pay to attract key skills and talent back into the workplace after maternity leave. We pay all of our time-served female staff 6 months maternity pay at 90% of salary, compared to the statutory minimum of 6 weeks at 90%.

34 24

Training & Development We are committed to employee involvement and provide a variety of career development opportunities. All employees are actively encouraged to express their views and contribute towards business improvement through our Continuous Improvement programme, Employee Open Forums, and other initiatives.

As part of our Continuous Improvement programme, more operators have received training to allow them to carry out maintenance on production equipment, saving £0.5m. We are also using this to upskill operatives to semi-skilled operatives and management.

We recognise that our most important resource is our employees. We develop our people, providing them with nationally recognised qualifications and ensure that all employees gain necessary skills to reach their full potential.

Our recent growth has enabled many of our employees to advance their careers through opportunities that we create at all levels of our company. We have always been an organisation where people can thrive and develop regardless of their gender or background.

Stateside Foods participate in a number of educational initiatives with local schools, as part of our Skills for success programme, in order to encourage both male and female students to follow career paths based in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects equally, but we feel that there is still work to be done to encourage females into manufacturing and engineering roles.

With our plans to continue to develop these initiatives it will help improve our gender pay gap further.

Parental Leave During 2019-20, of 1091 employees, 25 were entitled to take parental leave and 100% of these employees did so. 12 of these were female and 31 male employees. 12 31

100% 100% Employees taking Parental Leave 2019-20

All employees returned to work, following parental leave. Employees returned to work 2019-20

35 Employee Engagement Stateside Foods has been re-awarded the We recognise that our most important resource Investors in People (IIP) Gold standard again is our employees. We are committed to the this year, joining the top 7% of accredited development of our people and ensure that all organisations across the UK, who believe in employees gain the necessary skills, to reach their realising the potential of their people. full potential. We also recognise the importance of employee wellbeing. We work tirelessly to Our production facilities are based in recognise the efforts of our people. We work to Westhoughton, Lancashire, where we have continually review and enhance our employee factory site of over 20 acres. Our site employs benefits package. over 1000 people across a range of professions, to accommodate all aspects of the business in We operate a Buddy Scheme, for all new one location. starters, which helps to welcome and integrate them into the business. Coupled with this, we Stateside Foods is committed to employee send a confidential survey to new starters to involvement and provides a variety of career ensure we are meeting their expectations. development opportunities. Employees are actively encouraged to express their views and Our dedicated workforce plays a major part in contribute towards business improvement, the development of our business and we are through our Continuous Improvement proud to have attained the Gold Investors in programme, Employee Open Forums, Employee People accreditation, as we continue to work of the Month reward and recognition and also towards achieving even greater success and through the Company Suggestion Scheme. Platinum status, as one team, in the future.

IIP is the UK’s leading accreditation for business improvement through people management, with a focus on good people making great business.

36 26

Wellbeing Stateside Foods supports the health and wellbeing of its employees through a wide variety of benefits made available to all (see below). The company also understands the importance of good work life and family balance offering parental leave, enhanced maternity pay, flexible working agreements and support through childcare programmes. Other benefits offered by the Company include life insurance and employee discount schemes at various retailer/outlets.

Free Gym membership for Changing Company Employee all staff, plus a facilities for Savings Scheme engagement family member cyclists awards Subsidised Cycle to Work Canteen Facilities Length of Service Scheme Holiday Bonus

Counselling and Free Employee Free Eye Sight Assistance Service Awards Tests Mental Health First Aiders Programme

Occupational Free Social Gifts for New Health Events Arrivals

Gifts for Enhanced Healthcare Company Newlyweds Maternity Pay Cash Plan Sick Pay

Christmas Free Secure Compassionate Hamper Gift Onsite Leave Car Parking 10% Discount Employer Free on all Legal Physiotherapy Contribution Health and Safety Products with Provision Pension Plan Training HCB Solicitors Buddy system Service based increased for new Death in Service employer starters Benefit pension contribution

We recognise the loyalty and hard work of our people through our Service Awards programme. For every five years of service, our people are presented with a certificate and a gift, as our way of saying thank you. In the last 5 years, we have presented over 490 service awards.

37 Our People continued27

Family Wellbeing

Since 2013, we have held free family events open to all employees and their families. We believe that it is critical that our employees are able to spend quality time with their families whilst creating memories that will last a lifetime. In 2019, our events included our Summer Family Fun Day and an outing to Bolton Little Theatre’s end of year pantomime.

As part of our commitment to employee health and wellbeing, Stateside Foods are the main sponsors of Bolton Arena; a not for profit organisation, offering low cost sports facilities and coaching to local people. This relationship with Bolton Arena has grown and developed over many years following our longstanding agreement for Stateside Foods to provide every one of its staff, with membership at Bolton Arena’s gym, fitness and athletics amenities. This benefit also includes membership for a family member, meaning that our people can spend more time with their families, staying fit and healthy. Under the scheme, Stateside employees and their family are entitled to unlimited use of the arena’s state of the art fitness suite, sauna and steam rooms, studio classes and athletics track. This gym membership package is part of a wider initiative for Stateside to work closely with Bolton Arena to promote an active lifestyle for its workforce and the wider community.

Stateside Foods has several Workplace Wellness initiatives, from free fruit available to staff, to Wellness Weeks, which include onsite fitness challenges, expert advice on exercise and nutrition, and Body Fat Testing, all provided by the team of professionals from Bolton Arena.

We offer advice and support such as legal, pension and debt advice. Counselling can be provided confidentially to anyone in need through our Occupational Health service. Our free employee membership with Health Assured, also offers several services to our people through the Employee Assistance Programme; getting support with emotional, legal, and family issues, talking to qualified therapists – either over the phone or a live ‘chat’, and access to a wealth of information on health and wellbeing issues. This service is confidential, and can be used 24 hours a day, seven days week.

38 27 of mind

Stateside Foods have created and introduced the State of Mind wellness and wellbeing programme to provide extra support to the whole team.

The programme aims to do several things; to allow better access to Mental Health information and support, to reduce the stigma associated with poor mental health, to encourage open and honest conversation about mental health, to provide a safe environment where employees feel supported and valued, and to get people to appropriate professional help quickly.

We acknowledge that these things will only be achieved through raising awareness at every level and by equipping our people with the skills and knowledge to enable them to look after their own wellbeing, to spot early signs of mental health issues in themselves and their teams, and to signpost to appropriate professional help.

The State of Mind programme therefore has several components; in addition to our existing counselling provisions, our managers throughout the business have been trained in Mental Health awareness; we have trained and introduced MHFA England qualified Mental Health First Aiders on all shifts and in all areas; we offer courses on Wellness and Wellbeing at every level; we have provided an Employee Assistance Programme with Health Assured to all staff; we have ensured staff have access to information via our website, our company newsletter and as literature available in 11 physical locations across the site; we are encouraging open conversations, through team building sessions with the directors and through performance development reviews and one to one meetings.

39 Training and Development to support and strengthen employees who are out of their By increasing the skills and the skills, knowledge and probation period. These reviews knowledge of our employees, capabilities of all our team take place in January and July, Stateside Foods produces members and managers, and are applicable to all of the confident, muti-skilled people, through structured training qualifying workforce. working as an effective and provision and performance efficient team. management Performance and training during the probationary period is Our Human Resources and Stateside Foods operates a reviewed monthly until the Learning and Development Performance Development probationary period has been departments work together Review (PDR) System for all completed.

40 Our People continued29

The management of Stateside Foods recognise our responsibility to ensure that all employees are trained and motivated towards achieving even greater success as one team.

Stateside Foods offers Chartered Management Institute (CMI) training, apprenticeship schemes which offer degree level qualifications, soft skills training, IT courses, vocational qualifications.

Management Training In a fast paced industry like ours, staff development is one of the most important ways in which we can remain relevant and continue to grow. As a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) approved centre, we encourage management development by providing the training to equip our managers with the tools and skills needed to carry out their work confidently and effectively. The Chartered Manager programme requires candidates to demonstrate how they have developed as a manager. It also reviews how they have applied their leadership and change management skills to achieve a significant business impact. We have offered this training since 2014 and to date, 84 employees have been through the process at various levels. Our target is to ensure all managers receive the training and are CMI accredited.

Soft Skills Training Soft Skills training is available to all and includes courses in Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Effective Communication, Time Management, Presentation Skills and many more subjects. We aim to train over 170 of our people in Soft Skills each year. This year we held 15 different training courses, with a total of 120 attendees.

Professional Qualifications Stateside Foods recognises the value in its people realising their potential, and so invests, by providing funding for them to gain professional qualifications, wherever appropriate for the needs of that person to succeed in their chosen career. In addition to the NVQ and degree level apprenticeships (see overleaf) and the student placements that we offer, our people are currently studying for professional qualifications in Health and Safety, Accountancy, Purchasing, Packaging Technology and Human Resources.

41 Our People continued27

Apprenticeships Stateside Foods has a long history of providing career paths for our people and we pledge to ensure that all employees have the opportunity to reach their full potential. As part of our commitment to supporting the next generation of talent, we have provided apprenticeships to young people for many years. Our apprenticeship schemes began in Engineering, but have since branched out to a number of key areas across our site, including Manufacturing, Accounts, IT, Planning.

We offer NVQ Level 3 apprenticeships in Engineering and degree level apprenticeships in Chartered Management and Mechanical Engineering, working in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University and UCLAN respectively.

Our apprentice numbers have increased steadily over recent years as can be seen in the graph below.

42 27 Our People continued31

Apprentice Personal Development Our Personal Development Programme equips all of our apprentices with the skills required to succeed in business, from discovering personality profiles, to honing presentation skills and teambuilding.

As part of their apprenticeship, our Chartered Manager apprentices gain a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Level 5 qualification, in addition to their degree qualification.

All apprentices are supported throughout their studies by the Learning and Development team and the Apprentice Mentoring team. They are given many experiences and opportunities within a safe learning environment.

43 44 33 Our Products

Award Winning Innovation Since 2013, Stateside Foods has won over 25 product innovation awards including the Grocer Chairman’s Award in 2015 – beating all other category winners. Stateside has also won 13 PAPA retailer awards, 4 PAPA best chef awards, 2 sustainability initiative awards and 1 best Shelf Ready Packaging award. In 2018, Stateside won a prestigious Supplier of the Year award and in 2019 a Best Launch award with one of its biggest customers.

Our approach to driving sales begins at the research stage with our retail partnerships. This means we complete objective driven inspiration trips, restaurant trawls, innovation days, trade show attendance, trends conferences and market reviews that feed into structured strategy conferences. This drives a product brief that starts Stateside Foods prides itself on offering the most the product development process and enables appropriate, quality, own label chilled pizzas us to push the boundaries in order to deliver the for each of our customers’ tiers, using the most projects and innovation that generates award sustainable packaging solutions available at winning initiatives. the time of development. The process starts with expert insight and market analysis, food/ Delivery Goals packaging trends and cuisine data interpretation, To continue to develop customer focused chilled resulting in recipe development, true innovation pizzas that drive sales and lead the market in and where possible, first to market initiatives. terms of innovation; ingredients, product and This is complimented by our strong programme of packaging, whilst considering the consumer’s operational investment that includes the building needs around the broader issue of health and of a new wood-fired bakery in 2018, topping well-being. line improvements 2019 and the installation of various robots to improve efficiency over the last 5 years.

Through our in house expertise in NPD, Commercial including Insight, Engineering, Supply chain, Production, Technical and Purchasing, we produce the highest quality products at highly competitive prices.

45 34 Our Products continued

Stateside Foods Stateside Foods prides itself on sources from 44 our key suppliers sharing the same suppliers in 37 principles as us, in terms of customer countries. service, food safety, continuous All suppliers are improvement, ethical trading and Stateside Foods innovation approved.

Responsible sourcing The sourcing of high quality ingredients is one of the key elements to our award winning success. The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is a business-driven initiative for the development of food safety management systems to ensure food facilities are processing safe food for consumers. We operate a global supply base and only source and purchase from GFSI accredited, fully auditable and traceable sources. We also work collaboratively with our key suppliers to form strategic partnerships for the future protection of our business and to ensure the continuation of high quality sustainable raw materials. In addition, to the maintenance of current suppliers and ingredients. Stateside Foods operates a robust new ingredients and supplier process. All new raw materials brought into the business are reviewed by Technical, Production, Quality Assurance, Procurement, Purchasing, NPD and the Process teams. A full risk assessment is completed and where required, all new suppliers are audited by the Technical team before a product reaches final customer approval.

We are accredited against the BRC Meat Supply Chain voluntary module. This means we have full transparency of the supply chains of the meat ingredients we use.

46 35

We are RSPO (Roundtable on Our Suppliers Sustainable Palm Oil) Certified. We invite our suppliers to attend a There is in an ever-urgent need Stateside Supplier Conference annually, where strategies, expectations and and growing global concern future requirements are shared. that commodities are produced Our key suppliers are also invited without causing harm to the onto site regularly to present their environment or society. RSPO new ingredients, trends and market certification is an assurance to insight. This helps inform our team the customer that the standard and is another knowledge feed into our customer briefs and development of palm oil production is process. sustainable.

Supporting local suppliers Stateside Foods is based in Bolton, Lancashire, UK. It is our aim to source as many ingredients and packaging as possible, locally. Currently, 74% of our raw materials by volume and 99% of our packaging by volume is sourced from within the UK. There is a requirement for us to source some ingredients outside the UK, for example premium Italian meats and cheeses. On these occasions, we look to keep the transit packaging to a minimum. In fact, on all raw materials both UK and outside the UK, we are continually looking to reduce transit packaging. See the Packaging section.

Quality Maintaining a positive quality culture is critical to producing safe and consistent products. The aim of this plan is to ensure that all We ensure colleagues are aware of their personal responsibilities to food our foods safety and quality, to empower our people to continually improve. It sets a framework to make the idealogies of food safety both are free from second nature and autonomous, whilst learning from employees genetically to further build and grow. This cultural plan operates universally modified throughout the business with commitment from the most senior ingredients level through to day-to-day production.

47 36 Our Products continued

Food Safety Food safety is of paramount importance to us. Since 2007 we have been Grade A BRCGS (Brand Reputation Compliance Global Standards, previously named BRC) accredited . Furthermore since 2014 we have been signed up to the unannounced BRCGS scheme and as such have been successfully awarded with grade AA+ accreditation since this time.

Over the years we have also significantly invested and expanded our Technical resource to ensure our focus on food safety, from field to fork, is maintained. We operate a stringent screening and performance monitoring process of our supply base, raw materials and factory operations. This ensures we can continually challenge and drive continuous improvement of all aspects of food safety and our processes.

As we are in a world of inherent fraudulent risks our VACCP (Vulnerability Analysis Critical Control Point) system ensures both business protection and peace of mind for us and our customers. Our VACCP system (led by an externally accredited multi-disciplined team) ensures all our raw materials are screened for any potential adulteration and vulnerability risks.

48 37

Consumer Health Public Health England’s draft guidelines were published in 2018, with a startling introduction to the status of our health as a nation, particularly the health of our children within the UK.

Stateside Foods works hand in hand with its customers to reduce Salt, Sugar and Fat within its products. We recognise our responsibility to ensure our products continue to improve from a health perspective and we also believe that educating the adults of the future is crucial to underpin any changes made to products. We have also seen a rise in sales of smaller single serve pizzas and vegetable options. Although from a small base, we will continue to support the sales of these products within the UK market and continue to drive reductions in Salt, Sugar, Fat and of course, Calories – which are the focus of the 2018 Public Health England Report.

Delivery Goals To continue to work with our retailers and our industry body (The Pizza and Pasta Association) to engage with Public Health England. To continue to drive improvements to the labelling of products in order to help consumers manage their diets, in terms of Calories, but also Fat, Sugar and Salt. To embrace our retailers’ policies on health and make positive changes, where possible.

49 50 39 Our Environment

As one of the largest businesses within our local area, we recognise and respect our responsibilities. We comply with all applicable environmental laws and we continually review and adapt our processes to ensure we reach our targets, year after year to reduce and minimise our impact on the environment.

Our purpose It is impossible to ignore the devastating effects of increasing amounts of plastic and other waste materials, destroying our oceans and their inhabitants. Energy resources are depleting and our carbon footprints contribute to the ever growing issue of global warming and extreme weather conditions that we are becoming more and more familiar with.

As a business that cares for this generation and those to follow, we understand our responsibility to drive a positive environmental change. By adopting and developing effective initiatives we can reduce our personal consumption of packaging and production of waste materials, and minimize our impact in order to preserve the environment.

There is an urgency for us to succeed in driving down the negative effects of the day to day activities, that leave an ecological footprint not only of ourselves, but also of the members of our supply chain.

51 40 Our Environment continued

What matters to us...... Packaging

Business Principle Packaging protects our Our aim has been to ensure that we drive packaging reduction initiatives and to constantly identify products and ensures improvements to our packaging for our entire product that our pizzas arrive in range in order to make recycling easier. the perfect condition, Challenges for our customers and To ensure that all packaging used is fit for purpose, we the consumer. work with our suppliers and customers to ensure we provide the best possible solutions. When considering the best possible solutions, we will not only look at We want our packaging innovation, but we will consider the following criteria: Reduce (is there a need); Reuse (does the packaging to be fit for purpose have a future use); Recycle (can the packaging be but we want to use as recycled). little as possible and to make sure that what 25 we must use, can be 20 easily recycled.

We all need to play our V part to keep plastics 154.8 I N out of our oceans and S I O our packaging out of landfill. Reduce the non-recyclable packaging on our products by 50% from our 2019 levels

Initiate and co-develop future-proof packaging technology that reduces plastic waste by 50% from 2019

Maintain our ‘zero to landfill’ manufacturing site status

Reduce the non-recyclable packaging on incoming materials by 50% of our 2019 levels

Reduce plastic intake by 20% and incoming cardboard by 40% from our 2019 levels

52 41 We are constantly working to ensure Current projects that we remain up to date with the latest technologies in the packaging Introduction of a recycling sector, whilst maintaining awareness scheme for our label backing of government legislation, allowing us paper, removing 50 tonnes of to strategise our plans for now and the waste each year, making us the future. 1st manufacturer to use the recycle scheme. The wider Freiberger Group, Stateside Foods’ parent company have set up Focus on reducing the thickness a working party, consisting of key of shrink film to save 25% of our employees, universities and industry film usage. experts to drive the sustainable packaging agenda. We will continue to work with our Progress to Date suppliers, customers and their suppliers, We are proud that since 2015, we and consult with government bodies have contributed zero waste to and other organisations, such as WRAP landfill. Our non recyclable waste (Waste & Resources Action Programme) goes to RDF (Refuse Derived to ensure the best possible methods of Fuel) which is used to generate packaging are chosen and used. energy. The result is that we are a zero to landfill site.

The elimination of 647 tonnes of All of our plastic from landfill each year by corrugated removing plastic and polystyrene packaging packaging from our products. products are FSC Accredited A reduction in incoming deliveries of packaging materials of 142 lorry loads each year.

Removal of 48 tonnes of plastic each year, through planned adaptations to current packaging materials

We are a member of the On Pack Recycling Labelling scheme

53 What matters to us...... Energy Business Principle We have a solid integrated policy of energy management, We know that every reduction and awareness across the whole of our business. This is even included in our new employee time we turn on a induction, to ensure all new employees are aware of our light, that simple act energy policies from the moment they join Stateside Foods. uses energy and the natural resources that Challenges Challenges with energy usage never stop in a business provide that energy are of our size, so we continually monitor all of our energy depleting. usage, using remote monitoring across the whole of the business; this enables us to quickly react to any changes to ensure we operate in a controlled manner. We also know that as a result of our energy consumption, carbon 025 dioxide is released 2 into the atmosphere, increasing the effects on climate change. V I N It is important that S I O we use renewable energy resources, Reduce our energy consumption per unit of production reduce our energy by 10% from our baseline figures (2016) consumption and Continue to source 100% renewable energy ensure our operations are as energy efficient as possible, in order to minimise the negative impacts on our environment for future generations.

54 Progress to Date ISO 50001 is an accredited standard Our energy reduction achievements which helps organisations to use date back several years. More recently their energy efficiently through the our rate of progress has increased development of an effective energy with ISO 50001. In early 2017 we management system. This not obtained our accreditation. At the only helps to conserve resources beginning of 2020, we were re- but contributes to tackling climate audited. This gives assurance that we change. ISO 50001 is the system are making progress and continually that we use to monitor and maintain reducing our carbon footprint. control of energy optimisation.

We have an energy management team who plan energy strategies and We have a programme in targets for the business. We include in place where any light fitting our energy management team, people that fails, is replaced with an from all areas and levels within the LED alternative that not only business, to get as broad a perspective reduces energy consumption, as possible, to ensure we are making but also improves lighting in effective improvements throughout. the area. We ensure we are heading towards our agreed targets and maintaining Frequency invertors have been current ENPIs (Energy Performance fitted to all energy consuming Indicators). drive systems throughout the business to minimise energy usage.

We have introduced low energy motion sensitive LED lighting to our office and warehouse facilities.

55 We installed a number of energy monitoring loggers with a view to monitoring the plant start up process to ensure we eliminate wasted energy from high energy consuming equipment such as ovens and fridge plants, too early.

Energy Results 2019

Reduction Baseline Target Actual Target Actual Target Actual Target achieved 2016 2017 2017 2018 2018 2019 2019 2020 since 2016

Electricity - Kilowatt hours of energy 154.5 152.9 135.5 134.8 141 140.3 151 3% 149.8 consumption per 1000 pieces Gas - Kilowatt hours of energy 162 160.4 160.5 159.7 157 156.2 168 -4% 166.7 consumption per 1000 pieces Total - Kilowatt hours of energy 316.5 313.3 296 294.5 298 296.5 318 -1% 316.41 consumption per 1000 pieces

As can be seen from these energy Future Plans results, we saw an increase in our energy use during 2019. Introduction of a staff awareness programme, This increase is as a result of our identifying energy champions product mix - we are no longer in all areas of the business to producing pizza bases, but we ensure everyone considers are producing more topped pizza. energy consumption and the Additionally we are making a higher environment in all actions of proportion of large pizzas than in the business. previous years. Therefore, our energy usage would have continued to show a reduction if the results were calculated per tonne of product rather than by pieces produced. We are continuing to work towards our target reduction for 2025. 56 What matters to us...... Food Waste Business Principle Our aim is to put unavoidable waste to good use. When people in our own communities are going hungry, it is morally wrong to waste food. 2025 Wasted food does not result only in the loss of the product itself; V there are lost resources I S N within the product, I O such as energy, water, fertilisers and the fuel to transport materials. Maintain our current ‘zero to landfill status’ Add to this, the cost of storing and refrigerating Support our customers in reducing their own food waste by 20% these goods and both the financial and environmental costs of food waste mount up. Progress to Date As a food manufacturer, We manage our manufacturing processes to enable us to deep chill our finished products. The it is our responsibility performance of this process allows us to give to monitor and our retail customers maximum in-store shelf life and as such has had a massive reduction in their minimise our food levels of food waste. waste by adopting processes available through technological advancements at every opportunity.

57 Other Internal Waste Business Principle What matters to us...... Our aim is to put unavoidable waste to good use.

Waste paper makes up 50% of a business’ waste and to produce 25 one sheet of A4 paper, 20 requires energy and an average of 5 litres of water. V I N 93% of paper comes S I O from trees, precious commodities that help to control the CO2 in the atmosphere. Reduce general waste by 50% How? By improving waste segregation across all We all need to consider sites and office areas, ensuring waste streams are where the paper that not contaminated, to allow recycling. we use comes from Decrease our paper usage by 50% and how it is made. We have to take action to How? By challenging everyone in the business to reduce paper usage by utilising digital means. reduce what we use and to implement effective recycling processes into our businesses.

58 Progress to Date Current Projects

A process of waste streams, A new Warehouse Management reduction of use and staff module and manufacturing education is in place to increase system is being installed to recycling and reduce waste. We enable the use of mobile scanning have removed all desk bins from devices in all material movement our offices and replaced them areas, reducing the use of paper. with recycling bins for cardboard, plastic, metal and food. This move means that all waste must be placed in the correct bin ready to be recycled. Removal of single use plastic cups and bottles from our site.

59 What matters to us...... Water and effluent Business Principle Through robust stewardship, our aim is to reduce the amount By using less water, we of water we use per tonne of production, and minimise our reduce the water that impact on water and effluent. needs to be treated with chemicals and the energy needed to pump the water. 2025 Reducing this energy, also lessens the harmful

CO2 emissions which V lead to climate change. I S I O N

Reduce site water usage by 25%

Between 2016 and 2025:

Reduce Chemical Oxygen Demand level targets by 17%

Reduce suspended solid target by 30%

Reduce seperable oil and grease levels by 40%

Maintain neutral PH for all United Utilities testing

60 Progress to Date

Water is a major component of our Stateside estate. With this, we also manufacturing process. In both our have an e-mail alerting system, food manufacturing process and for so should unusually high water the cleaning of our factories and consumptions be identified, we can equipment, water is vital. Due to quickly address causes. continued growth in production, we have installed our own onsite water treatment plant to enable us to treat Future Plans all of our waste water. The plant came into operation in February 2018; this not only reduces our Introduce a staff impact on the environment, but awareness programme also on our local water treatment plant which therefore benefits the local area and other local We will work with businesses too. By investing in companies specialising technological improvements, we in water reduction, to have significantly reduced the carry out audits and amount of water we use for our gain advice from experts processes and improved the quality on our next actions to of our waste water. reduce our overall water consumption. We have always had good visibility on our 2 major production facilities water supplies and we are now Delivery Goals including the water supplies to the Through the use of Key Performance rest of the site here at Stateside Indicators, we will continue to monitor Foods. Through investigation and and reduce our consumption of water a new water supplier, we now have across the business and pollutants a billing structure that provides in the water. We will continually complete transparency and remote review our targets to ensure we are on-line monitoring for all of the always challenged to further drive the individual supplies across the reduction in our consumption. we are improving the systems to accurately and quickly identify our KPIs.

61 Carbon and emissions Business Principle What matters to us...... We aim to reduce our operational emissions in line with the 2020 Climate Change Levy targets. We also actively encourage our supply chain to engage in projects to reduce their carbon emissions. As a business it is Challenges our responsibility to We continually assess opportunities to improve, and we keep our minimise our carbon eyes and our minds open to new technologies. Being an ISO 50001 accredited business, we have the tools to continually scrutinise impact on our planet. As every element of our business performance and monitor the a food producer we are a most efficient use. With this approach, we minimise our carbon valuable asset to the UK emissions, whilst continuing to be competitive in the market. food supply chain, but we must always take our responsibilities seriously 2025 and strive for carbon neutrality. V I S I O N

Increase direct deliveries by 50% How? By agreeing improved supply chain procedures with our customers.

A reduction in deliveries to customer (equivalent volume) by 5% How? By encouraging customers to order by pallet layer or whole pallet

Reduce CO2 emissions from the manual handling equipment fleet power by 21% How? Manual handling equipment to be Lithium-Ion powered

Third party logistics to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% How? By customers reducing their use of diesel powered Light Goods Vehicles by 10% overall

62 Progress to Date

For many years, we have been We have installed new operating in accordance with the refrigeration packs using Climate Change Agreement. This environmentally friendly challenges us to achieve annual Liquid Petroleum refrigerant. targets, continually reducing our This system, whilst using less carbon impact. We are committed energy, also captures heat to reducing the energy needed energy generated in the process to make our products. With the of reducing temperatures. The integration of network energy stored heat energy is used to monitoring systems, we have been carry out the necessary daily able to identify anomalies in our defrosting processes on the energy usage and rectify any issues. plant. This has enabled us to reduce our carbon footprint in line with the Future Plans 2020 Climate Change Agreements (CCA) targets. In accordance with EU regulations, the use of certain Our cycle to work scheme, which refrigerants will be outlawed helps our people to purchase new by 2030. At Stateside Foods, bicycles at discounted prices, as we are acting well in advance well as keeping our staff healthier of these regulations. We have and happier, is saving over 44 already eliminated the use of tonnes of carbon per year. such refrigerants from one of our manufacturing facilities. Our Through the introduction of other factory will be free of the double decked trailers in 2017 offending refrigerant within 2 and improvements to our years. The new environmentally logistical operations, we are friendly refrigerant will be used achieving further reductions in CO 2 in our new deep chill stores emissions. Through this project, which is part of our expansion we save approximately 16,000 planned for 2020. miles travelled each year, which is eqivalent to 29 tonnes of carbon. Tree planting schemes. By increasing the height of the To work with our hauliers to products on pallets, we are improve the efficiency of our maximising the weight per pallet logistics process and reduce shipped and have so far saved the our carbon footprint and to use transport of 1788 pallets per year, more double decked trailers. equating to 34795 miles or 58

tonnes of CO2 .

63 Supply Chain Business Principle What matters to us...... We aim to reduce our negative environmental impacts, not only of our own operations but of our whole supply chain, working together with our partners. It is important that we partner only with suppliers who share our beliefs and will work alongside us in 25 order to achieve our 20 environmental goals.

Together, we can and will V achieve great things. I S I O N

Reduce plastic intake by 20% and cardboard intake by 40%

Suppliers and hauliers to have ISO50001 accreditation

Introduce innovative delivery solutions for our raw materials and packaging

64 Progress to Date

Use of Microlise, a system designed to positively influence the efficiency of fuel utilisation by limiting harsh braking, harsh accelerator usage and excessive idling.

445 vehicles used by our hauliers with Euro-6 Step-C engines that are demonstrating exceptional emisson reductions.

Increased the length of 111 trailers increasing the capacity of each trailer.

103 trailers now have lifting rear axels, reducing rolling resistance, resulting in lower fuel usage.

Working in accordance with ISO14001 or ISO50001.

Our hauliers are members of the Freight Trade Association Logistics Carbon Reduction Scheme.

Reducing empty mileage running through cross-network planning and synergies.

Use of aerodynamic and double deck trailers to reduce fuel consumption and food miles.

Latest specifications for chill chambers incorporating ‘intelligent’ refrigerator plant and lighting.

65 46 37 Our Partners

Supply Chain Stateside Foods prides itself on its supply base ensuring that our suppliers share the same principles as us in terms of quality, customer service, food safety, continuous improvement, ethical trading and innovation.

Stateside Foods screens all of its new suppliers against ethical criteria. Once approved, suppliers are audited biannually to ensure continual compliance.

SEDEX and Stronger Together Stateside Foods Ltd is committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking within our corporate activities or within our supply chains. All potential modern slavery risks related to our business have been evaluated and steps put in place to enforce an effective transparent system.

Since 2008 Stateside has been a committed member of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX). Sedex are a non-profit membership organisation allowing the sharing of sourcing data on supply chains. We have also successfully completed a number of SMETA audits (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit). Furthermore we follow the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code. The ETI is based on the Standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) working to stop inadequate working conditions across the world.

Stateside Foods Ltd supplies leading food retailers with private label chilled pizzas.

Our supply chains are predominantly based in Europe; we require all of our suppliers and partners to comply in full with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and meet our values.

66 37 47

Policies, Standards and Practices As a member of Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX) and business partners with Stronger Together, we operate the following policies that detail our approach to the identification of modern slavery risks and steps to be taken to prevent slavery and human trafficking in its operations:

Training Staff are made aware of the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 through the site induction programme. HR personnel are trained on identifying and preventing modern slavery.

Awareness Programme All employees are made aware of the basic principles of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Key areas include:

•Understanding human trafficking and labour exploitation.

•How employers can identify and prevent slavery and human trafficking.

•What employees can do to flag up potential slavery or human trafficking issues to the relevant parties within the organisation; and what external help is available.

Preventing Hidden Labour Exploitation Policy We are committed to developing and adopting a positive and proactive approach in tackling the hidden exploitation of Migrant Workers. This policy applies to all Stateside Foods Ltd sites and all staff involved in the Recruitment, Managing and Supply of Contractors on a day to day basis.

•We have designated appropriate members of staff who have attended the Identifying Hidden Labour Exploitation training, and have the responsibility for developing company procedures around this subject.

•We accept that job finding fees are a business cost to Stateside Foods Ltd and these are paid by Stateside Foods Ltd. The company will not use any individual or organisation to source and supply workers without confirming that workers are not being charged a job finding fee, including overseas labour providers.

•All members of staff will ensure that any third party labour supplier will hold a GLA licence and no employee will engage in the use of a third party labour supplier, including overseas labour providers, until this has been approved by the Human Resources Manager.

•We adopt a proactive approach to reporting suspicions of hidden worker exploitation to the Gang masters Licensing Authority and the Police. Any reports will be made to the respective authorities via the Human Resources Manager.

•We provide information on tackling “Hidden Labour Exploitation” to our workforce via posters and leaflets which are displayed in all of the Stateside Foods Ltd sites.

67 48 Our Partners continued

Recruitment Policy

Direct Recruitment Our recruitment processes include a facility to identify if applicants are being exploited by asking and recording:

•How the worker found out about the work

•Whether the worker has paid anyone, or will have to pay anyone to obtain the work in question

•Whether the worker has paid anyone to get into the UK if newly arrived

We also ensure that testing used during the recruitment process is conducted in a controlled environment with a format that is regularly changed to prevent coaching of individuals.

Labour Providers Our temporary staff suppliers are audited quarterly to ensure that relevant document checks and induction paperwork have been correctly completed for each worker and that the Agency Workers Directive 2012 is being complied with. We also conduct face to face interviews and Stronger Together questionnaires with individual workers.

It is a requirement that our labour providers are a Stronger Together business partner.

Supplier / Procurement Code of Conduct We are committed to ensuring that our suppliers adhere to the highest standards of ethics. Suppliers are required to demonstrate that they provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and act ethically and within the law in their use of labour. We work with suppliers to ensure that they meet the standards of the code. Non-compliance with the Modern Slavery Act will lead to the termination of the business relationship.

Reporting Concerns We encourage all our workers, customers and other business partners to report any concerns related to the direct activities, or the supply chains of, the organisation. This includes any circumstances that may give rise to an enhanced risk of slavery or human trafficking.

Due Diligence Stateside Foods Ltd recognises that the principal exposure to Modern Slavery is within the supply chain, we undertake due diligence when considering new suppliers, and review our existing suppliers.

Reviews include: •Assessing and reviewing the supply chain to consider their particular product and or geographical risks of modern slavery and human trafficking.

68 49

•Evaluating the modern slavery and human trafficking risks of each new supplier.

•Conducting supplier audits or assessments through questionnaires, which will incorporate compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) Base Code

•We conduct risk assessments and continuously monitor supplier ethical conduct.

•We have a whistle blowing policy in place with Südzucker.

•We have been building SEDEX membership progressively across our supply base, all our supply chain is encouraged to demonstrate good ethical practice either by having SEDEX membership or suitable ethical policies.

For our supply chain, transparency is currently assessed through SEDEX, with the suppliers linked to us on SEDEX highlighted if they are high risk.

This Modern Slavery Statement is made pursuant to Section 54 (1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes Stateside Foods Ltd Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement for the foreseeable future.

Targets We work with some of our key customers to be a part of ensuring a fair deal and resilient livelihoods for all people in our supply chain. We will work with fair trade to help strengthen producer communities around the world. We train and support our suppliers to ensure protection of the people in our supply chain.

PAPA The Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association We are committee members of The Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association.

The Association is our industry body and through this, Stateside Foods have the opportunity to shape the industry at a wider level. Through this organisation, are involved with the key health issues regarding salt, sugar, nutrition and hydrogenated fats. Through this body, we lobby Government to influence their approach to food health issues.

As members, we also receive guidance and advice, European legislation alerts and food and hygiene training.

69 50 Our Partners continued

Campden BRI Stateside Foods are members of Campden BRI, who provide the food and drink industry with the practical scientific, technical and advisory services needed to ensure product safety and quality, process efficiency and product and process innovation.

Their services include: Analysis and testing - helping to ensure safety and optimise product quality.

Operational support - helping companies ‘do the day job’. Troubleshooting manufacturing problems - ingredients, processing, packaging, advising on hygienic design and maintenance, supporting implementation of systems such as HACCP and risk management, and helping with product development.

Research and Innovation – industrially relevant research chosen and funded by members, as well as work for government departments and agencies.

Knowledge Management - industrial best practice guideline publications, a wide range of training courses, seminars and conferences, and expert technical and legislation information and advice.

Investors In People We have been working closely with Investors In People (IIP) with the aim to develop stronger leaders at every level of the organisation. We want to ensure that all people-managers are equipped to provide the best support to their teams.

Our work with IIP enhances performance by measuring employee feedback against the IIP framework, which shows us what’s working and highlights opportunities for improvement. We recognise the importance of building the right organisational structure to unlock our people’s potential, as this helps future-proof Stateside Foods and ensure sustainable success.

We embrace constant change and keep improving with the help of the IIP’s dedicated experts. Through our relationship we can draw on their skills and experience. We have used the IIP accreditation to strengthen and embed our organisational culture and understand how we can use our values to drive decision-making at every level, empowering people to deliver exactly what’s needed.

In order to attract and retain talented people, we work hard to genuinely engage with and invest in our people.

70 51

Co-op Future of Food The Co-op Future of Food Channel is part of Manufacture 2030, a network for manufacturers who want to go beyond compliance and become more sustainable – reducing cost, impact and risk.

The Co-op Future of Food Channel is a dedicated space for suppliers, the Co-op, partners and colleagues to share knowledge and accelerate progress on important ethical and environmental challenges together. It’s a community where over 1,000 peers collaborate and share knowledge on challenging areas such as energy, waste, water, ethical trade, packaging, and modern day slavery.

The Co-op Future of Food Channel originated from their Future of Food ambition, which looks at how together, we tackle the challenges of sustainable food production up to the year 2030.

Asda Save & Sustain Exchange The Asda Sustain & Save Exchange (SSE) is an online group for Asda suppliers and colleagues, working together to improve operational efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Asda partnered with 2degrees to develop the innovative Sustain & Save Exchange (SSE). Launched in 2012, the SSE’s private online platform enables Asda’s suppliers to cut costs, improve resource efficiency in energy, waste and water, and set the standards in terms of sustainability.

Stateside Foods are active members, along with 1300+ Asda colleagues and supplier partners inside the Sustain & Save Exchange (SSE), sharing ideas, contacts, and good practice to accelerate improvements in operational efficiency and reduce environmental impacts.

71 52 Our Partners continued

IGD IGD (Intitute of Grocery Distribution) are a research and training charity that sit at the heart of the food and grocery industry. They exist to upskill people working in or looking to join the food and grocery industry. They also manage initiatives driven by research and best practice relating to science, technology or economics in the food industry.

Stateside Foods work with the IGD to deliver educational workshops in local schools. These workshops are designed to raise awareness and to encourage young people into the food manufacturing sector, whilst raising their career aspirations within the industry. We feel that this is a great way for us to secure a pipeline of young new talent coming into our business from the local community.

72 53

GroceryAid GroceryAid has been providing emotional, practical and financial support for grocery colleagues since 1857. GroceryAid works in partnership with hundreds of supporters across the trade and assists over 17,000 colleagues, 73% of working age. GroceryAid distributes £4.25M to help grocery people from supermarkets, convenience stores, wholesalers, manufacturers, distribution, sales and all support functions.

The help that GroceryAid offers can make a very real difference and is available to colleagues working in the industry today as well as those who have retired. People experience difficulties in many ways and the charity has developed services to provide; • Crisis support • Financial assistance • Free confidential advice – via Helpline

Crisis support might be securing a safe haven for somebody fleeing domestic violence, settling rent arrears to keep a grocery colleague in their home or funding a household repair.

Financial assistance not only includes ongoing support, it can also provide winter heating allowances and essential items such as beds, cookers and fridge freezers that many of us take for granted.

The 24/7 Helpline (online and freephone 08088 021122) provides problem solving and emotional support for a range of topics including counselling services; relationship support; career advice; basic legal matters; financial advice and debt management; advice for carers; and a telephone befriending service. Specialist counsellors are also available for those who have experienced a traumatic incident.

Stateside Foods are working to support and raise awareness of the charity; in supporting the work of GroceryAid, we are supporting our own people at a time when they may need it the most.

73 74 55 Our Communities

Community At Stateside Foods our pledge is to make a positive difference to our local community through our support of charitable causes. We not only provide donations to a number of worthy charities but we also play a major support role within our community.

Our staff regularly go out into the community as part of our litter-picking initiative, working to keep our local area clean and tidy and a nicer place to live and work. The litter-picks also work as a way to support our nominated charities, Bolton Hospice and The Christie, as we donate £10 to each charity for every bag of litter collected by our teams.

Education and school support One of our key community goals is to increase awareness of Stateside Foods and the food and drink manufacturing industry and to raise the career aspirations of local young people.

Young Enterprise Each year since 2015, Stateside Foods have sponsored a local team of students to take part in the Young Enterprise Company Programme, allowing them to experience what it’s really like to set up and run a business. The Young Enterprise programmes provide practical ways for young people to get a taste of the world of work and the excitement of running a business. Through these programmes, students gain a first-hand insight into the career of local employees and learn about the skills which are valued in the workplace.

Over the course of the Young Enterprise project , the students make all the decisions about their company, from designing their product and raising initial share capital, through to selling directly to customers and ultimately winding up the company and paying their taxes. All this takes place with the support of Business Advisors from Stateside Foods. Stateside Foods’ contribution to Young Enterprise helps teachers embed practical business skills and careers advice into the curriculum.

75 56 Our Communities continued

Feeding Britain’s Future Volunteers from Stateside Foods have been back to school to inspire and educate students about the world of work. The volunteers took part in IGD’s Feeding Britain’s Future, which provides guidance to 13 – 17-year-olds on the skills needed in the workplace and insight into the variety of jobs available in the food and grocery supply chain.

The volunteers share their knowledge, experience and career stories with the students at local high schools, helping to bring the food and grocery industry to life. The workshops also feature activities designed to build confidence and develop key employability skills like communication, teamwork and decision-making.

In 2019, Feeding Britain’s Future school workshops helped 13,500 students with the support of 162 companies, providing over 4,300 volunteer hours . As a result of the workshops, 89% of students feel better prepared for the world of work, 100% of teachers agree the workshops have developed the skills of students and 87% of students attending a Food Science Summer School say they would like a future career in the food and grocery industry.

Stateside Foods’ volunteers have attended workshops in schools in the north-west. These workshops will aid the schools in achieving the new Gatsby standards, which ensure students have a real life experience and interaction with an employer.

89% of students feel better prepared for the world of work

IGD.com

76 57

Stateside’s Skills for Success Programme We support several schools with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) days where we run workshops, which link fun activities to real-life work based projects. Our aim here is to give students an insight into the real world of manufacturing whilst understanding the value of the subjects they learn in school.

Stateside Foods assist our local schools with mock interviews, CV writing workshops and packaging design competitions.

Greater Manchester Careers and Enterprise Adviser Network The aim of this network is to ensure that young people have at least one meaningful encounter with an employer or experience of the world of work for every year that they are in compulsory education. Research shows that young people who have at least four encounters are 86% less likely to be unemployed or not in education or training, and can earn up to 18% more during their career.

At the moment only 40% of schools offer young people this kind of encounter, and unemployment among young people is three times higher than overall unemployment.

Stateside Foods have worked for many years with local schools, to educate students in the world of work and more specifically, to introduce young people to the abundance of career opportunities available within Food and Drink manufacture. The network has provided a platform in which Stateside Foods can do this in a more formal and collaborative way, sharing best practice with like-minded businesses in the Greater Manchester region, enabling us to inspire our young people and provide them with the best start on their journey to a succesful and satisfying career.

Stateside currently provide the Enterprise Adviser for local school, Westhoughton High School and through this partnership, students have participated in STEM related career workshops and Social Enterprise projects. Stateside employees have shared their routes into their chosen career and demonstrated the daily activities of the many different teams that make up our successful business.

77 58 Our Communities continued

Community Organisations As part of our aim to encourage and promote an active lifestyle, Stateside Foods are the main sponsors of the Stateside Foods Bolton Arena, which is a non profit organisation, offering low price sports facilities to local people. It is through our relationship with Bolton Arena, that we are able to offer all of our people free gym membership - a key benefit that plays a part not only in physical wellbeing, but mental wellbeing too.

We are corporate sponsors of The Octagon Theatre in Bolton, who work with young people through their Academy. The Academy works to build confidence in these young people by providing them with opportunities to write, perform and tour their own productions across Bolton, that they otherwise would not have.

Community Events Stateside Foods have been proud to call Bolton it’s home for over 25 years and our fantastic team of over 1000 talented individuals reside in the local areas in and surrounding Bolton.

Bolton is known for its excellent community spirit; its desire to come together to celebrate successes, reflects our own values at Stateside Foods, where hard work and innovation are recognised and rewarded in many different ways.

Since 2013, Stateside Foods have supported the Bolton Food & Drink Festival participating as a main sponsor for seven years. The festival brings around 270,000 visitors to Bolton and is an event which has grown and grown in both size and popularity. It has been an important event for Stateside Foods as it has enabled us to speak to local people about the employment opportunities working with us, but it is also an important event for the community, bringing people together to celebrate the talents and successes of local people whilst supporting local businesses.

Stateside Foods sponsored the Bolton & Bury Business Awards again this year, an event which allows us to meet and celebrate all the fantastic people that help to make Bolton the thriving success story that it is. Stateside Foods sponsored and presented the Business of the Year 2019 award.

The Bolton Family The Bolton Family is a group of public, private and voluntary organisations working together to make Bolton a strong, vibrant and prosperous place to live.

This group has enabled Stateside Foods to join other businesses and organisations to help those in need in the local area. Through The Bolton Family, this year we have worked with and supported Urban Outreach with food hampers for local people who have fallen on hard times, Bolton’s Dementia Choir and The Woodland Trust in a tree planting project.

78 49

79 60 Our Communities continued

Charity and Fundraising We support charitable causes which may be sponsored by either the business, its employees or the local community. Our vision is to make a positive difference to our local community through this support, which is not limted to cash donations. We play a vital and positive role within the community by combining knowledge, skills and expertise for the benefit of all.

Throughout each year, our employees raise significant amounts of money towards charitites of their choice. We support their work by matching the money raised.

Our current nominated charities are Bolton Hospice, Lagan’s Foundation and The Christie, and our workforce are actively encouraged to get involved in fund-raising events for these worthy causes. We have been the main sponsor of the Bolton Hospice Midnight Memories walk for many years now and our apprentices are regular competitors in the ‘Bolton Hospice £50 Challenge’.

We have been a patron of Lagan’s Foundation for several years. This charity supports local families of babies and children with heart defects.

Throughout the year, we hold various events, to raise funds for both The Christie and Bolton Hospice.

We also support local, non-profit businesses through corporate sponsorship, such as The Octagon Theatre and Stateside Foods Bolton Arena.

We are involved in Grocery Aid, the charity associated with the retail grocery industry in the UK and we support key charities supported by our key customers, notably Tickled Pink, Tommy’s and Sue Ryder.

80 £36,574 donated by Stateside Foods to charities, local schools and £4,055 community projects raised by Stateside Foods staff for charities and community projects of their choice

81 Charity Highlights 2019-20 62 Apr

Continued corporate Apr 1 sponsorship of The Octagon Theatre 29 Employee takes on ‘It’s a Knockout’ event for charity, Once upon a smile. June 15 June Continued sponsorship of the annual Bolton Hospice Midnight Memories 19 Walk event.

Supporting Bolton Hospice Business Bowling Competition

Jun Financial support given to St Michaels Primary School Summer Fair 22 July 4 Financial support given to Sponsorship of Bolton Hospice Golf Day July The Gates Primary School event and Ashton Football Club 6 Summer fairs July Employee’s Race for Life for Cancer 14 Research UK Sponsorship of the July Bolton FM school workshops and support 19 at Big Birthday Bash Aug 1 Continued patronage of Bolton Hospice 82 Donation to Birtenshaw Sponsorship of a Oct School for provision of Sep memorial football 63 new kitchen facilities. match in aid of suicide prevention charity, 1 13 Papyrus

Oct Oct 1 1 Continued patronage of Lagan’s Stateside’s apprentices join the Bolton Foundation Hospice £50 Challenge raising over £2850

Selection boxes, Sponsorship of gin tasting Nov chocolates and luxury Nov event in aid of Bolton hampers donated to Mayor’s Charities. Bolton Hospice for their Christmas 11 1 tombola and Santa’s grotto.

Employees volunteered Nov to support The Woodland Trust with the planting of Nov Employee’s charity boxing trees at Bolton’s Smithill’s event in aid of Cancer 19 Estate. 23 Research UK Dec Jan Employee’s charity run in aid of homeless charity, 1 Donation of 1300 Christmas Be Strong. Puddings to charity, Urban 1 Outreach for hampers for local people.

Mar Feb 31 1 £2533 donated to both The Christie Sponsorship of Place 2 Place Football and Bolton Hospice. This money came Club, supporting men’s mental health. from saving made through Continuous Improvement projects. 83 84