Anti Slavery Statement
Introduction from Stuart Urquhart, Operations Director
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. We are currently developing our Anti-Slavery policies, and this will reflect our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.
Organisation's structure and business
We are Speymalt Whisky Distributors Ltd (t/a Gordon & MacPhail), a family-owned premium spirits business, based in Speyside in the North East of Scotland established in 1895. Our business is a retailer, wholesaler and premium spirits producer.
Our head office, bottling, distribution and retail unit operates from 2 sites in Elgin and we own and operate Benromach Distillery (including a visitor centre) in Forres. Currently the business has approximately 160 colleagues, all of which are based in the UK.
Our supply chains
Our Supply Chain comprises of suppliers from across the world. With spirits packaging (such as wooden boxes, glass bottles and corks) being purchased domestically in the UK and from China, France, Germany, Austria and Portugal. Oak casks are imported from America and Spain for whisky maturation. Production raw materials, such as malted barley is purchased from UK Companies (where the barley is grown and produced within the UK).
As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk we routinely visit and review our supply base, our procurement policy sets out due diligence requirements for working with our suppliers, these include site visits prior to commencing any major new supply arrangement and regular review meetings in order to maintain strong working relationships and ensure transparency on working practices.
We acknowledge there is a risk in certain countries around the world for human trafficking, but through our due diligence of our suppliers view currently there is low risk within our suppliers of this occurring.
Our policies on slavery and human trafficking
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. Our business has a commitment to acting ethically, through our colleague procedures and code of conduct. Along with ensuring integrity in all our business relationships and to implement and enforce effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.
Supplier Adherence to our values and ethics
To ensure all those in our supply chain and contractors comply with our values we will develop a robust supply chain compliance programme. We are in the process of creating a dedicated supply chain compliance team, which consists of representatives from key business areas and will develop and review our policies. Including in the initial deliverables will be developing a supplier code of conduct.
Training
Currently we do not offer colleagues specific training, but this training requirement will be developed over the coming year to ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking, in our supply chains and our business.
Our effectiveness in combating slavery and human trafficking
We are in the process of developing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure how effective we have been to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any part of our business or supply chains. These will include completion of supplier audits and review meetings.
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 28 February 2019.