Ethical supply chain

While sugar is often the economic backbone of the community where it is grown, many of these communities face common challenges of poverty, education and access to basic social services.  

As a major buyer of raw sugar we have, for many years, used our influence and worked with partners to improve practices and build capacity in our supply chain to support the most vulnerable to adapt to many sustainability challenges. We are now encouraging our suppliers to certify their operations against credible and independent sustainability standards.

*It goes without saying that we aim to refine only sustainably sourced raw sugar.

In order to be transparent about what we mean by this, we have developed a definition to guide our commitment and actions.

While certification is not a cure-all, it is a useful step.  We want all of our suppliers to be certified against an internationally recognised sustainability standard such as Bonsucro, Proterra, SAI FSA or Fairtrade. Where there is not sufficient volume of certified sugar in the market for us to purchase, we will purchase from suppliers who have been verified through our own rigorous ethical sourcing programme.  We are committed to vigorously and continuously improving our monitoring and remediation processes while treating our suppliers fairly and with compassion.