What We’re Doing

Working With Suppliers

At Cadbury we’ve always believed that good ethics and good business go together naturally.

"It is important that all employees should know what standards of conduct are expected of them. We regard it as good practice for boards of directors to draw up codes of ethics or statements of business practice and to publish them both internally and externally."

Sir Adrian Cadbury in his 1992 report

When we talk about working with suppliers there are two things we focus on:

  1. Maintaining our ethical sourcing standards
  2. Developing sustainable agriculture programmes

Maintaining our Ethical Sourcing standards

We have around 40,000 suppliers. Some are global corporations and others are small companies, or even individuals, from all over the world.

Many suppliers are only one part of a much longer supply chain that delivers raw ingredients from the field to our factory doors.

We work together with our direct suppliers to ensure they share our commitments to the highest ethical standards. They are all expected to review our Ethical Sourcing Standards and agree to work to them.

We firmly believe that this programme can help protect and enhance the reputation of our brands worldwide, reaffirm our commitment to developing our business in a sustainable manner and support our ongoing business relationships with key suppliers like yourselves.

Our Ethical Sourcing Standards cover a variety of issues. For example, that people involved with our products work in decent conditions, are paid a fair price for their goods and services and that they work reasonable hours.

Developing Sustainable Agriculture Programmes

Cadbury seeks the highest quality ingredients and we believe this can only be done if they are sourced in a sustainable way. This is why we are implementing sustainable agriculture programmes.

This means the ability to secure a long-term supply of ingredients at consistent quality, stable prices, and wherever possible, enhancing the positive and minimising negative socio-economic and environmental impacts.

nternally we’re giving our people the training they need to be able to identify any problems when they visit suppliers.

"The course emphasized the importance of ethical sourcing and the need for it to be an integrated part of supplier management. Cadbury has undertaken a lot of activities with regard to ethical sourcing - partnerships, memberships to other bodies to address bigger issues outside of Cadbury control. It also gave me a better understanding of SEDEX."

Barbara Jamieson - Quality Health and Safety Manager

Working In Partnership

We have prioritised around 3,000 suppliers globally who we judge to be potentially higher risk and who are more closely related to our brands/products, including direct suppliers of ingredients, packaging and promotional material. They are required to acknowledge our Ethical Sourcing Standards and to register on a data base run by SEDEX (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange).

SEDEX is a non-for-profit organisation that uses the latest technology to enable companies to maintain and share data on labour practices in the supply chain.

Suppliers fill in a self-assessment form and then later an onsite independent audit is conducted to make sure that they meet certain standards.

Once we have identified key issues or concerns we are able to help suppliers to identify solutions, track progress and help them to resolve and make changes that benefit their organisation.

We also provide tools and support to help our suppliers meet our standards such as workshops, country workbooks and other useful ethical trading information.

This might take the form of seminars like the one above conducted with our key suppliers in India. Each supplier adopts its own action plan that helps them address any issues flagged by the assessment.

"Sai’s presentation on health and safety was really an eye-opener and I’ll be taking a fresh look into my plant operations."

Govind R, Senior Manager, Olam Exports India Ltd

We have also developed an assessment process for the sustainable sourcing of our 9 key ingredients: cocoa, sugar, mint, palm oil, gum arabic, liquorice, hazelnuts, almonds and raisins. This includes initial desk-based research and then an on the ground assessment for priority areas. An assessment template has been developed which is then filled in for the crop taking into account country of origin and the market context for that specific crop.

Another way of improving sustainable sourcing is by working in partnership with other companies, non government organisations and governments.

Cadbury has been a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) since it began where we have played a major role in developing the RSPO’s activities and in working with other businesses to adopt sustainable palm oil.

We are looking at cocoa sustainability first and with the groundbreaking Cadbury Cocoa Partnership that besides paying premium prices for Ghanaian quality cocoa, it will help farmers increase their incomes and social welfare.

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