Modern Slavery Act Statement
This statement is made pursuant to Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It details the steps that Applegreen has taken to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking within our group businesses and supply chains.
Organisation
Petrogas Group UK LTD, trading as Applegreen, is one of the fastest growing retailers in the UK, aiming to provide consumers with low fuel prices and quality food options. To date the Company comprises of over 1300 colleagues with over 110 different locations generating over £650 million in annual turnover.
The company’s Head Office is located in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, with a satellite office in Leeds for our Fuel Card division.
Governance
Our commitments on tackling Modern Slavery is overseen by our Human Resources Department with a clear understanding that everyone has the responsibility to be aware of Modern Slavery throughout the business.
Operational support, both locally and nationally, is key for the business in ensuring a consistent message on modern slavery.
Policies
Our internal policies, which are supported by the Senior Team, are designed to support our colleagues throughout their employment with Petrogas Group UK and prevent modern slavery in the workplace.
A number of these policies are listed below:
Recruitment Policy:
Including the right to work criteria being met to ensure all employees can legally work in the UK.
Pay Policy:
Our colleagues are paid directly into their own bank account, ensuring their money goes directly to them. We also ensure our team members are paid the National Living wage throughout the business.
Whistle-Blowing Policy:
The Company operates a confidential Whistle-blowing scheme allowing colleagues to confidentially raise any concerns, such as human trafficking and modern slavery.
We will look to build on these in 2019 by ensuring our suppliers our aware of our commitment to prevent modern slavery in the workplace.
We’ll do this by ensuring suppliers accept our code of working before we actively engage in business with them.
Supply Chains
We operate with a preferred supplier list and operate with strong confidence all suppliers are aware of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
The company acknowledges there is always further improvements to be made and will look to open more communication channels with our suppliers about our own ethics and ensure they commit to ensuring modern slavery and human trafficking is reduced across the workplace.
Training
The Company is currently reviewing the training methods and platforms and will look to improve upon information already shared with staff regarding modern slavery and human trafficking in 2019.
We will pull as much resource from groups such as stronger together to ensure up to date and accurate material is delivered across our estate.
Performance Reporting
We will commit to measuring how we are preventing modern slavery and human trafficking in the workplace by:
- Monitoring the number of reports, if any, the Company receives from either a colleague, the public, suppliers or law enforcement officers regarding incidents of modern slavery and human trafficking in the workplace.
- Monitor the number of individuals trained regarding modern slavery in the workplace throughout the next year.
- Look to further enhance our verification process when new suppliers are added to the business.
- Strengthening our relationships with our current suppliers in ensuring modern slavery and human trafficking is not in the workplace.