This statement has been approved by the board of directors of Cajou Investments Holding Limited on 31st March 2021 and is published in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
It sets out the steps taken by Cajou Investments Holding Limited , its subsidiaries and other relevant group companies (“Cashew Coast”) to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in its business and supply chains.
We are committed to continuously improving our policies, standards and practices to combat modern slavery and human trafficking, which are abuses of a person’s basic freedoms and rights. We are wholly opposed to such abuses in our direct operations, our indirect operations and our supply chain. We have taken, and will continue to take, a number of steps that seek to ensure that slavery and human trafficking do not take place in any part of our business or our supply chain. We are not complacent as to the risks of slavery and human trafficking in our business. The structure of our business Cashew Coast is a manufacturer of packaged cashew kernel products, selling such products through multiple channels, including through major retailers and online direct to consumers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands.
Our products are manufactured at our cashew processing facilities in Côte d’Ivoire and are distributed and consumed in the UK, Europe and the United States of America. As at 31 December 2020, our most recent financial year end, Cashew Coast employed 520 people globally.
Our products comprise of cashew kernels solely, and we source the raw cashew nut from registered smallholder farmer communities in Central Côte d’Ivoire.
Our product packaging is sourced from a Côte d’Ivoire supplier, with some input materials sourced externally from India. Our direct and indirect supply chains include services that are not specifically used in our products but support the manufacture of our products and the operation of our business. Such services include those that meet the operational needs of our head office (including marketing, IT, software, human resources, agency, credit card processing, professional advisor fees) and our facilities and warehouses (including postage and packaging and equipment servicing).
The service providers are located primarily within the countries where these offices and facilities are located but can extend globally for any specialist items or service which cannot be obtained domestically.
We have assessed that the biggest risk of slavery and human trafficking is in our global ingredient supply chain. As part of our initiative to identify and mitigate risk in this area and to ensure all third parties in our supply chain comply with our values, in 2020 we have become a SEDEX/SMETA member and have been fair trade certified. We are committed to our people, establishing clear criteria on workers’ rights, fair procedures, and suitable working environments that all of our suppliers must adhere to. All suppliers must sign up to our new supplier code of conduct as well as adhere to our Modern Slavery Statement of Conformity. Suppliers are approved against this during on-boarding and re-assessed to confirm compliance every 2 years. We have enhanced our due diligence with suppliers by including clear commitments to compliance with the Modern Slavery Act in our terms and conditions. We never knowingly support any unfair work or modern slavery practices. The risk of slavery and human trafficking within our own organisation is minimised as a result of the recruitment policies and compliance standards, and certifications that we have in place, and the oversight built into our line management structure throughout our operations. To ensure our staff have a high level of understanding of the risks in our supply chain and our business, staff involved in high risk areas (including ingredient sourcing and human resource teams) undergo training programmes.
Board of Directors
Cajou Investment Holding Limited
