Modern slavery statement

Shepherd Neame - Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

This statement sets out the steps that Shepherd Neame has taken during our financial year to ensure that modern day slavery and human trafficking is not occurring in our organisation or in our supply chains. This statement will be reviewed annually.

The Company acknowledges responsibility to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the relating definitions set out within.

Organisational Structure and Activities

Shepherd Neame is an independent family business and Britain’s oldest brewer.

Our core business is built around the brewing and packaging of beer and being a provider of Public House and Hotel facilities. Our operations are predominantly located in the South-East of England, with a reported revenue in 2024 of £172.3m.

The business is organised into three business units: Managed Pubs and Hotels, Tenancy and Licensed properties and Brewing & Brands.

We maintain many relationships with different organisations in our supply chain, as well as directly employing approx. 1,649 employees throughout the business (@ Dec 2024).

Our Policy on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking 

We are committed to ensuring that we prevent any occurrence of modern slavery and human trafficking from occurring within our business and expect all those in our supply chain to comply with our values.

Our Supply Chain

Our supply chains centre round the provision of food and drink and include the sourcing of raw materials and finished products. We have developed long-term relationships with a number of key suppliers but also have a large number of smaller suppliers in order to service all areas of our estate. Our aim is to work with partners who share our values and expectations.

Due Diligence Process

Company policies assist the organisation to assess, prevent and mitigate the risk of modern slavery existing in the organisation and its supply chains:

• Our employment procedures are fully compliant with all aspects of UK Employment law to protect individuals from exploitation. This includes carrying out right to work checks on all new employees. All employees are paid above the national minimum wage.
• The business will not forge commercial relationships with any business knowingly involved with slavery or human trafficking.
• We work in partnership with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to whose role it is to protect vulnerable and exploited workers.  
• We work in partnership with the British Retail Consortium (BRC) including continuously working to improve our audit procedures and results.  
• We are members of the Independent Brewers Production Group (IBPG) and contribute to the cost of and monitor the audits they carry out on key industry suppliers.
• We are registered with Sedex, one of the world’s leading ethical trade membership organisations. We use their data base with access to their audits, to ensure that new brewery suppliers have policies aligned with our own standards. Where production suppliers are not registered with Sedex we ask them to complete our own ethical audit questionnaire as part of the on boarding process and carry out our own audits every three years.
• Our on boarding processes for new contracts require those suppliers to provide details of their modern slavery, equal opportunities, grievance and whistleblowing policies and will contact them with more specific questions if this is felt to be necessary. 

Effectiveness and Communication

Shepherd Neame is confident that current procedures and the monitoring of those procedures provides assurance that our own employees are not exploited. However, we remain committed to reviewing and where necessary improving procedures in the current year by: 

• review and update of key policies relating to human rights.
• introduction of an outsourced whistleblowing support line with increased sign boarding to this resource.
• continued risk assessment of our supply chain and for any identified as high risk, complete audits to ascertain their understanding, compliance and set standard expectations.
• providing relevant mandatory refresher training to members of staff.  

Approval

This statement was approved by the company’s board of directors on 17 December 2024.

Financial Year: 1st July to 30th June
Financial Period: 2023/2024
Name: Glenda Flanagan
Position: Company Secretary