Driving down supply chain costs

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement April 2024 - March 2025.

Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. In addition to slavery, it takes various forms, such as servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person's liberty by another to exploit them for personal or commercial gain. VIDAfresh is committed to combat slavery and human trafficking.

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 2024.

VIDAfresh is an industry specialist in melons, pineapples and citrus sourced by our highly experienced commercial and logistics teams and supplied to our wide and diverse customer base both in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.

VIDAfresh recognises the global issue of human trafficking and with this statement declares that it will not tolerate any element of modern slavery within our operations.

We have systems in place to assess and report potential victims of modern slavery and to protect whistle-blowers.

VIDAfresh is a member of SEDEX, Stronger Together and Sainsbury’s RightLine initiative to help drive improvements and identify potential threats in all ethical aspects of our business.

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Due to our obligation to report on measures and ensure that all parts of our business and supply chain are slavery free we have put in place a designated Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy.

Our Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy demonstrates our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all aspects of our business operations and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls.

We have zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. To ensure all those in our supply chain and contractors comply with our values, we have in place a supply chain compliance programme.

VIDAfresh’s supplier compliance programme consists of a variety of systems and processes that reduce risk and highlight any ethical non- compliances within our supplier base. This is achieved and monitored using both inhouse and third-party audits coupled with regular site visits and independent ethical assurance schemes.

VIDAfresh has a supplier compliance team with members from the Technical and Commercial Departments. The compliance team is led by VIDAfresh’s Head of Technical.

To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, Stronger Together provides training to our staff on how to identify, monitor and report any suspected victims. We continue to advise and encourage our business partners to provide training to their staff and suppliers and providers to do the same. However, due to the nature of the industry, the use of temporary workers is unavoidable, therefore having an element of risk of forced labour. To ensure we have minimised risk to any potential workers, staff are provided training in their native language of how to report any potential threats. This year, additional staff members will attend introductory and advanced training courses.

VIDAfresh recognise the importance of tackling all ethical challenges presented to the business and are fully committed to the reduction and elimination of modern slavery to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any part of our business or supply chain. This is achieved by ensuring all our suppliers are members of ethical assurance schemes such as SEDEX and/or Stronger Together as well as completing ‘Supplier Approval’ audits in conjunction with stringent face-to-face customer audits as well as site inspections through independent third parties where possible.

Terry Watts

CEO