Sustainable Development at Bidvest Foodservice– SA
Bidvest Foodservice – SA is committed to providing safe, affordable and nutritious food products to the foodservice, hospitality and retail communities. Priorities include maintaining the highest standards of food quality and safety, providing a safe working environment and offering training and development opportunities for staff. There is an ongoing drive to reduce Bidvest Foodservice SA’s environmental impact by reducing energy usage and promoting recycling.

Material sustainable development issues

• management of credit risk
• food safety and product integrity (managing the cold chain)
• sustainability of seafood
• reducing energy, waste and impact on the environment
• employee engagement
• staff skills development, retention of management and succession planning
• impact of crime on stock shrinkage
• broad-based black economic empowerment through employment equity and procurement
• occupational health and safety
• customer service

Introduction
Managing credit risk, food safety and employee development are our top sustainability challenges, although the pursuit of savings through a reduced carbon footprint remains a priority. We appointed a quality risk manager responsible for food safety (standards and supplier accreditation), occupational health, consumer protection and labelling, and the management of sustainable seafood. This position has the company’s full support and these items are consistently on the agenda at board level.

Labour practices and decent work
Employee engagement
Caterplus has a decentralised system of engagement with its employees, aimed at sensing and responding to issues through the most direct communication channels possible. Most employees are represented through unions and negotiate independently with each of the 26 different business units (2009:29). Employment equity committees, health and safety committees and ‘green areas’ are important forums for staff engagement, where teams communicate and share best practice in an effort to drive continual improvement. At the end of the prior year we restructured the business from four to two business units without retrenching staff. This year we bedded down these units, delivering the planned efficiencies. We experienced no industrial action.

 The skills development of staff
Skills development is an ongoing challenge of high importance to both the company and its employees. Our policy is to promote talent from within and improve employment equity within the business. Continuing our partnership with Durban University of Technology, we piloted a Supervisory Development programme in Gauteng. Following the success of the programme, it will be rolled out to KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape in the New Year and the second phase of the programme will begin in Gauteng. We also developed and launched a staff induction programme and business game to assist all our employees in understanding how our business works, and the economic consequences of our actions in a simplistic and easy-to-understand manner. We continue with functional programmes to develop staff at all levels of our business. Our investment in the training and development of our staff has enabled us to promote from within and in so doing ensurie our succession planning.

Broad-based black economic empowerment through employment equity and procurement
We appointed a black female national HR manager to drive HR, staff development, training and transformation throughout our business. Reporting across all BEE indicators is improving, with particular progress being made in the registration and logging of suppliers under the DTI CoGP’s procurement code. We support a number of SED initiatives, such as McCarthy’s Rally to Read and Reach for a Dream programmes, as well as various orphanages and homes for the elderly and infirm, giving a total socio-economic spend of R1,4 million. Our aim is to achieve level 4 contributor status for the DTI’s CoGP for BEE by the end of the year.

Management of credit risk
The credit risk posed by customers in financial difficulty is still our top risk. Business failures have slowed over the second half of the year and our stricter credit policy paid dividends with significantly reduced bad debts.

Failing small businesses, such as certain of the restaurant and caterers we supply, is an unfortunate, but inevitable aspect of small business development. On the positive side, as part of our enterprise development programme, we are assisting 14 black entrepreneurs with the development of their catering businesses, putting them through a six-month programme in partnership with the South African Chefs Association Centre for Culinary Excellence at the University of Johannesburg. These will soon be new customers whom we will further nurture with business assistance, such as food costing, marketing advice and favourable payment terms.

Reducing energy, waste and impact on the environment
Both petrol and diesel consumption are tracked and have decreased by 22% and 27% respectively as a result of improved routing and the installation of on-site bowsers. Our major facilities are being constantly upgraded with efficient lighting systems, cooling systems and waste management systems. Cardboard packaging, plastic shrink-wrap packaging, paper and light bulbs are collected, measured, separated and dealt with according to the latest waste handling standards. Despite adding operational capacity, our water and electricity consumption was contained to an increase of 4,6% and 16,4% respectively. 

The biofuel project has run its course. Since September 2007, the Chipkins Catering Supplies branch in George has been buying used oil back from its customers, selling it to a local converter and buying it again for use as bio-diesel. Though we were pioneers in this field, uplifting and converting used oil has since become a recognised industry with specialist contractors. Our vehicles are unsuited to uplifting oil because of the risk of contaminating product, with the result that the initiative has been discontinued. We still however run our Garden Route fleet on biofuel.

The South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative
This year we joined the South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI), a participation scheme launched in 2007 in response to growing consumer awareness and demand for sustainable seafood. Its main aim is to contribute to the reversal of over-exploitation of fish stocks by promoting voluntary compliance of the laws governing the seafood trade and shifting consumer demand away from over-exploited seafood species towards more sustainable options. For our part, we undertake to DNA test any seafood product we can’t identify, thereby ensuring that the product supplied is the same as advertised. We have worked with various authorities to improve food testing technology, as well as building a database that can provide faster results on site. We regard this initiative as a vital link in the chain of responsibility between the customer’s plate and the marine resource.
In September 2009 we employed a full-time quality risk manager to ensure we comply with environmental risks, occupational health and safety standards, and the Consumer Protection Act. She also represents us on the South African Food Safety Initiative (FSI), a subcommittee of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA). This office is also responding actively to the new labelling legislation effective from March 2011, requiring standardised documentation of allergens, quantified statements about the nutritional benefits of products, and standardisation of weights and measures (including net vs. gross weights). An important consequence of this legislation is that labelling is expected to be policed more thoroughly in the future, in alignment with international standards. We expect to gain a competitive advantage in this new operating environment, leveraging off the leading standards we set for the industry.