Human rights
Human rights issues such as freedom of association, child labour and forced or compulsory labour, are enshrined under South Africa’s constitution and well legislated for under various relevant Acts. Incidents of discrimination are monitored in accordance with legislation and there were no significant incidents to report.

Screening of suppliers and contractors outside of South Africa is largely covered by the quality of our business associations, and Caterplus deals largely with well-known brands. Formalised screening of suppliers against a standard set of requirements has increased, and will continue to be expanded to cover human rights issues.

Society
Collusion has been in the news and some companies in the food industry took the opportunity to accuse and counter-accuse each other of anti-competitive behaviour. We contracted our lawyers to conduct a review of our business for the risk of anti-competitive behaviour. This review revealed a low level of risk on account of our inbuilt organisational culture and policies which are clearly communicated through our business. The absence of an industry body at which collusion could be initiated, explicitly or implicitly, further reduces the risk. This was followed up with an education session for our senior team.

Stock theft and related misdemeanours, such as fraud, have reduced further this year, a positive response to our investment in awareness programmes and our First for Service campaign to embed good value systems. The company reinforces ethical business behaviour with consistent and fair response to any incidents. The only incident of fraud this year, involved R110,000, was reported to the audit committee. The company’s response was dismissal, followed by the laying of charges. Conflict of interest is managed and a gift register is in place. Corruption is minimised as we avoid interaction with political parties and don’t tender directly for government business.

Product responsibility
Food safety and product integrity
The continuing trend toward stringent regulation of food safety plays towards Caterplus’ position as a high quality supplier, and has created a receptive market for the launch of our house brand, positioned around both food safety and food quality. Our latest development involves us working jointly with Bidfood Ingredients to develop a range of spices and seasonings specifically formulated for the foodservice industry. The launch of the range is imminent. Major items of legislation such as the Consumer Protection Act (scheduled for imminent implementation) and revised new labelling regulations will also have wide-ranging ramifications. We liaise proactively with the Consumer Goods Council whose role is to feed back industry opinion to the DTI.

Following engagement with customers, we employed a Quality Risk Manager to revise our policies in respect of food safety, product integrity, traceability and sustainability and implemented a plan for food safety and quality standards. We achieved this by working closely with Bidfood Ingredients to share best practice. In implementing these plans, we have spent time with our suppliers in understanding their food safety accreditation. Considering that any weak link compromises the entire supply chain, we are now measuring our suppliers and giving them a defined opportunity to comply with our industry-leading standards and policies.  

Backing up our quality controls and ongoing staff training, we have also invested in web-based thermal logging technology at Linbro park which automatically monitors the quality of the entire cold chain, sending automated sms alerts when corrective action is required. This offers proof to customers of the quality standards applied while their products are in our hands. In order to ensure we are delighting our customers with the quality of our service, we are implementing an automated complaints logging system along the guidelines of the Consumer Council’s code of good practice.