Modern Slavery Transparency Statement

MULTIVAC UK is one of 71 international daughter companies of the MULTIVAC group; one of the worldwide leading packaging solutions providers. At the core of our business, we support the creation of environments where all people are treated with fairness, dignity and respect; we also expect our suppliers to operate in an ethical and legal manner in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. As such, we believe that the risks of Modern Slavery within our business have been substantially mitigated as a result of our approach, values and internal policies.

Since our inception in 1985, MULTIVAC UK has supplied goods and services to the UK Market. This statement details MULTIVAC UK’s response to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to preventing Modern Slavery in any of our business activities and our supply chain. We believe we have effective systems and controls in place to ensure that Modern Slavery does not exist within our own business and have taken action and planned future steps to ensure that our suppliers meet our same high standards.

In the last 12 months, we have taken an extensive review our suppliers, and reduced our active supplier base to those whom we have conducted business with in the last 12 months. All dormant suppliers have been removed from our systems. This enables us to take a targeted approach to ensuring our active suppliers are committed to the Modern Slavery Act. At the point of engagement, all new suppliers will be expected to declare their commitment to the Modern Slavery Act prior to approval. To support this process, all internal stakeholders have been specifically advised of the risks of Modern Slavery when approving a new supplier for business.

At our 2018 supplier assessment, 88% of our active suppliers are based in the UK, and 99.3% are based in the EU. Just 4 of our active suppliers are based in countries outside of the EU. Given that suppliers outside of the EU potentially pose a greater risk of Modern Slavery, we will take steps to review these suppliers as our highest priority in the next 12 months. Following that, we will engage with our remaining active suppliers to ensure their commitment. In the last 12 months, we have built an internal process to effectively capture this information for any future assessments.

Our supplier review process takes into account several factors including; the type of business relationship we have with the supplier; the product(s) being purchased; the financial value and regularity of the supply; as well consideration for the country and industry within which the supplier operates. We will be mindful of government trade controls at the time of assessment to inform all of our reviews.

We have a Modern Slavery Policy in place which will enable us to manage our long term commitment and compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Part of our Policy is to provide a simple route for anyone to get in touch with MULTIVAC UK with questions or concerns in relation to Modern Slavery. We have set up an email address for this purpose which is msa@multivac.co.uk. The mailbox is closely monitored and all relevant correspondence will be handled in line with our Modern Slavery incident reporting procedure.

As part of our ongoing due diligence, we have an internal risk assessment in annual review which will help us to ensure that we remain compliant to the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, both now and in the future. Our risk assessment has been undertaken in conjunction with several internal departments, specifically those departments with direct contact and responsibility for our supplier and customer relationships. Currently, the risks in MULTIVAC UK are low due to the processes we now have in place to address Modern Slavery.

MULTIVAC UK will continue to promote internal awareness of Modern Slavery to all employees. We have created bespoke e-learning for our employees on Modern Slavery which uses industry-focused case studies in order to bring to life the realities of Modern Slavery. All new joiners to the business will undertake this training as part of their induction with us. For us, we believe it is key to equip our employees with both information and support should they have any concerns relating to slavery or human trafficking.

This statement has been approved by Jim Campbell, Managing Director MULTIVAC UK on 30 June 2018.