Direct Produce Supplies Limited (dps) are committed to Operating Responsibly and implementing the principles of ethical trade to ensure trust, transparency, and the respect of human rights across the supply chain.

The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the ‘Act’) outlines the requirement for dps to provide transparency in the actions taken each financial year to reduce end-to-end supply chain modern slavery, human trafficking and forced labour risks.

To demonstrate our on-going commitment and transparency: dps have published our full Modern Slavery statement in the following locations UK Government Modern Slavery Registry : dps 2020 – 2021 Modern Slavery Report

Our 2020 – 2021 statement refers to the financial year ending 30th September 2021 and includes the steps implemented by dps to identify, mitigate and prevent modern slavery risks in our own operations and supply chains.

dps recognise the unprecedented times in which we operate and cannot ignore the impact of Brexit and the global COVID-19 pandemic in creating new vulnerabilities for both workers and businesses. We consistently work towards delivering a supply chain where trust and transparency are constantly improved. Since publishing our last modern slavery statement (financial year ending 30th September 2020) we have strengthened our due diligence frameworks, together with building the capability of the team responsible for assessing modern slavery risks, raising awareness, and creating mitigative actions.

Over the last 12 months we have:

1. Defined a new ethical trade and human rights strategy
2. Developed & implemented an ethical trade human rights risk assessment tool
3. Achieved Stronger Together Advanced Business Partner status
4. Developed a plan to build capacity & raise employee awareness through enhanced training & engagement.
5. Established key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure our future impacts & effectiveness in minimising risks.

Our focus for the year ahead is to improve our modern slavery risk identification approach, increase stakeholder engagement and implement our new ethical trade and human rights strategy.

This statement has been approved by the dps Board of Directors.

Paul Beynon
dps Group CEO
March 2022

dps are fully committed to Operating Responsibly to ensure we maximise our positive social and ethical impacts and minimise our environmental footprint. Working together with our supply chain partners, we aim to have a restorative impact on the planet so that we can secure a sustainable future for generations to come.

Our Environmental Sustainability Commitments

We will minimise our environmental impacts by:

• Reducing our end-to-end Food Waste
• Removing Plastic Packaging and improving Recyclability
• Protecting and restoring Biodiversity
• Implementing Water Stewardship practices
• Minimising office, manufacturing, and agricultural Waste through the principles of Circular Economy
• Creating a roadmap to achieve Net Zero by 2035 across our own operations and a greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction target aligned to Science Based Target initiative (SBTi).

Our environmental commitments aim to contribute directly to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs): Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, Life on Land, and Partnership for the Goals.

Our global supply chain is directly impacted by the effects of climate change, and we recognise the importance of collective action to protect natural resources. In November 2021 dps joined the WRAP Water Road Map as supporting suppliers to increase resilience in water stressed areas by improving water quality and availability, and working in collaboration with other businesses, aim to achieve a shared target of sourcing 50% of the UK’s fresh food from areas with sustainable water management.

SDG Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, is particularly important to dps. In 2017, we adopted SDG 12.3 to halve food waste in our operations and have a roadmap to deliver this commitment by 2025.

dps are UK WRAP – IGD Food Waste Reduction Roadmap signatories, we report on our food waste annually which further embeds our commitment to halve supply chain food waste from farm to fork. We work closely with our suppliers and customers to reduce food waste across the supply chain and by partnering with redistribution charities such as FareShare and City Harvest we are able to prevent food waste by making sure that surplus food, perfectly fine to eat reaches the people that need it most.