MODERN SLAVERY STATEMENT

Introduction

Little Moons are frozen and chilled mochi, a fusion of Eastern and Western cuisine – soft and chewy rice flour dough wrapped around sweet fillings to create colourful little balls of joy.

We make treats that brighten your day. What brightens ours is knowing we’re sparking positive change and that we’re looking after every person at every step of making our delicious products.

We’re committed to staying Little as we grow. This means a lower carbon footprint, sourcing responsibly and doing business with respect.

We understand that food production is a high-risk industry for modern slavery. We also recognise that our business wouldn’t be what it is without the people who grow our ingredients, manufacture our products, and distribute our mochi around the world.

This Statement
This Statement outlines Little Moons’ commitment to preventing slavery, human trafficking, and broader human rights issues in our business activities, and explains the steps we have in place to identify and manage modern slavery and human trafficking risks.

We have zero-tolerance towards modern slavery and human trafficking. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to prevent slavery and human trafficking. Our aim is to have no slavery or human trafficking in our direct and indirect business operations.

This Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement relates to actions and activities during the financial year to 2023.

Governance
This Statement is an output of our Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy which tracks the governance and monitoring of this Statement.

We ensure this Statement is updated annually to reflect our progress to address risks. The responsibility for updating this Statement sits cross functionally between people, procurement, supply chain, technical and sustainability teams to reflect the manner by which human rights affects many aspects of Little Moons’ business. We ensure this Statement is reviewed and approved by our Board of Directors.

Our business and operations
Today, Little Moons has 378 permanent employees across our offices in London, Paris and Hamburg, and our factories in London and Kettering. Around 20% of our total employees are agency staff. Little Moons produces over 150 million mochi a year, selling over 20 flavours of chilled and frozen mochi in 28 countries.

Little Moons represents a proud blend of global cultures, heritage and flavours. Our packaging derives from 13 suppliers and our ingredients are sourced from 41 suppliers who source from over 90 countries.

Our actions

Policies, processes and training

Our team
We believe that awareness and education are crucial in combating modern slavery and human trafficking. Little Moons has employee Handbooks which we ensure outline our Company values and People policies, including our anti-corruption, bribery, whistleblowing, and modern slavery policies. We ensure these are provided to all employees upon joining the business and are made easily accessible throughout employment via our online People platform. We are committed to providing training to our employees to ensure they understand the signs of modern slavery and human trafficking, know how to report any concerns, and are aware of our policies and procedures to address such issues. We will ensure all our employees complete an online training course by the end of 2023.

Little Moons also holds and ensures annual renewal of our Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authorities license which guarantees that we meet employment standards for our Movers and Makers. We currently employee 20% of our workforce through a third-party staffing agency, principally servicing our factories. Our staffing agencies are certified as members of the Association of Labour Providers to ensure regulation and minimum ethics standards are met. We aim to annually audit our staffing agencies as part of our due diligence. In 2023 we will launch a confidential whistleblowing helpline for all employees to report unethical practices.

Our suppliers
We ensure all new Suppliers complete a Supplier Approval Questionnaire which provides us with an in-depth understanding of the supplier, their sourcing, and their values. We ensure Suppliers are only approved upon providing this information. During the onboarding of a new Supplier, we ensure a transparency assessment of their countries of origin is conducted. In 2023 we will conduct a country-of-origin risk assessment of social and environmental risks of all ingredient suppliers.

Little Moons has a Sustainability Questionnaire which asks our existing Suppliers a series of questions about their social and environmental impact, which all = Significant Suppliers will sign and complete by the end of 2023. Little Moons has a Code of Conduct which outlines our ethical, social, and environmental expectations of Suppliers, which we will ensure our Significant Suppliers sign by the end of 2023.

Performance indicators
The Company uses the following key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure how effective we are in ensuring our practices towards identifying, managing, and preventing human rights risks.

  • In 2023 we will ensure all employees receive training on modern slavery
  • In 2023 we will launch a confidential whistleblowing helpline for all employees to report unethical practices.
  • In 2023 we will conduct a country-of-origin risk assessment of social and environmental risks of all ingredient suppliers
  • In 2023 we will ensure all Significant Suppliers (those who make up at least 80% of our spend) complete our Sustainability Questionnaire
  • In 2023 we will ensure all Significant Suppliers (those who make up at least 80% of our spend) sign our Code of Conduct
  • In 2024 we will update this Statement to reflect our progress with our current policies and processes
  • We will continue to uphold our existing policies and processes as outlined in the Statement

Signed: Mike Hedges, CEO, 27.07.23

This statement was approved by the board of directors on 27.07.23

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