Bidcorp

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, it discloses the impacts of these engagement activities on its sustainability strategy.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates its commitment through policies and activities aimed at reducing plastic usage and transitioning to sustainable packaging. For instance, Bidfood New Zealand is in the process of phasing out single-use plastic bags and crate liners. Bidfood UK has set a goal to reduce plastic usage by 358 tonnes by 2025, based on a 2019 baseline. Furthermore, in Spain, operations have been fully digitalized with electronic catalogues and delivery notes.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company demonstrates its dedication to sustainable fishing and aquaculture through qualitative evidence and adherence to environmental sourcing criteria. Additionally, it has partnered with the Global Aquaculture Alliance, Marine Stewardship Council, and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council in implementing a sustainability-based approach when procuring seafood products.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption. Channels include a website and an email address, and a whistleblower line that is managed independently by an external service provider.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, and reports that it has 30% women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. Additionally, the company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
While the company discloses a remuneration policy related to climate, it has an opportunity to link this policy to improvement in social issues. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, the company can provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, the company can report any potential misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company states that it has a materiality assessment, it has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how external stakeholders are involved in the process and the outcome of the process. Furthermore, even though it discloses some sustainability objectives including those related to climate, there is room to establish group-wide targets for the most critical parts of its value chain. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company reports that its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions increased compared to its FY2021 values. While the company focuses on reducing emissions per unit of sales rather than pursuing an overall reduction, it has an opportunity to track their progress toward these scope 1 and 2 targets, and align these goals with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Although the company discloses a target to reduce all emissions by 25% by 2025, there is no evidence of specific targets for reducing scope 3 emissions. Therefore, the company has an opportunity to set scope 3 targets, which could also be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory, and report progress toward this goal.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose some activities and time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Food loss and waste
The company has the chance to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report on its progress toward achieving these targets. Additionally, the company can align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, and report progress against this target.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company demonstrates a commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture, but there is room for improvement in terms of providing quantitative evidence to support claims of increased sustainability. An opportunity exists for the company to establish and disclose targets for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture across its entire portfolio, while also reporting progress made towards these targets.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate how it is improving the nutritional quality of its products and to set targets to increase the share of more nutritious products in its portfolio.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to food safety and demonstrate that its operations and supply chain adhere to food safety standards.

Workforce nutrition
While the company has health and wellbeing promotion programs for its employees it has an opportunity to enhance the program by incorporating nutrition-focused health checks or nutrition education. It could also disclose the length covered by its parental leave policy, as well as any other breastfeeding supports such as dedicated breastfeeding rooms or flexible working hours for breastfeeding mothers. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to implement a programme to offer healthy food options to its employees.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations. While the company requires its suppliers to prohibit child labour, it has an opportunity to require them to have an age-verification system in place. Further, it could indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions. Also, it could adopt procurement practices and develop supply chain relationships that improve farmers’ income resilience.

Forced labour
The company has the opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain. Specifically, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees, the retention of workers’ personal documents, and the restriction of workers’ freedom of movement. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to set a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it sources. Also, it could disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, describe its process for identifying such activities, and incorporate related clauses in contracts with business relationships.

Additionally, the company could disclose how it approaches lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document, and divulge how much it spends on lobbying activities. While the company states that it makes political contributions after approval from the board, it has an opportunity to disclose whether these are made only by exception, and detail the criteria for these cases.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement expecting its suppliers to commit to respecting health and safety of their workers, along with information on supplier compliance monitoring. It could set a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or declare it has achieved this goal. Additionally, the company could explain its method for determining a living wage in each region, and how it supports suppliers in paying a living wage.

Moreover, it has the opportunity to commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment, disclose related time-bound targets, as well as information on the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain, but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. Additionally, while the company carries out risk assessment management processes, it has an opportunity to disclose how it identifies human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain. It could further explain how it assesses and identifies its salient human rights issues. Moreover, it could also disclose a global system to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues.