Sustainability report: a review of Tiger Brands’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance

Our centralised food safety and quality system, embedded at group level, provides the direction and support needed to empower each employee to take personal responsibility for food safety and quality, particularly at the operations level. The chief supply chain officer is responsible for executing the food safety and quality system, with support from the quality director. The board exercises ultimate oversight on food safety and quality through the RSC.

Our 2022 quality strategy outlines short, medium and long-term priorities that drive improvements in our end-to-end management of food safety and quality, across functions. We aim toward a fully integrated system, where robust and contemporary processes, continuously updated, are supported by talented and well-trained people who work with inspiration in a culture of quality excellence.

In line with the strategy, we have developed a quality scorecard which we have standardised across all our sites and categories, with a monthly reporting cycle on performance. Activities trackers have also been developed and aligned with monthly reporting against the scorecard. These measures have helped us improve quality governance across the group.

MAKING QUALITY A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FOR TIGER BRANDS
Develop a world-class quality approach delivering the brand promise
RAISING THE FLOOR (RESTORING BASICS)			BUILD QUALITY CAPABILITY AND CULTURE (QUALITY MINDSET)			RAISING THE BAR (CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT)
Supplier quality assurance Perfect execution at factories Food safety Quality in logistics.			Structured quality organisation Quality talent pipeline Quality mindset Engagement with external entities.			Voice of the consumer Quality through cross-functional teams Manufacturing excellence customs and practices (MECP) quality pillar Brand promise health check.

We hold ourselves, our suppliers, and third-party manufacturing partners to the same stringent standards by implementing ongoing risk assessment, gap closures and certification. Our supplier quality assurance (SQA) programme is currently being reviewed to ensure that it will result in compliance and deliver the identified improvements. All suppliers are required to have food safety certification, preferably a certification recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), such as FSSC 22000, BRC, IFS, and SQF. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification is also conditionally accepted as a minimum. We conduct all necessary product testing through in-house and outsourced facilities.

Our product testing includes:

Microbiological testing at our Central Micro Laboratory for inland factories, or onsite for coastal factories	We provide a dedicated explanation of our food safety standards online at: www.tigerbrands.com/sustainability/reporting.
Pathogen testing (outsourced to Microchem)
Physiochemical testing (onsite and outsourced for more specialised testing)
Sensory evaluation (onsite)
We also conduct precautionary testing for emerging quality/ safety concerns

In 2021, we have made the following progress at our sites:

• We conducted quarterly self-assessments against the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) protocol, and self-assessments against the Tiger Brands' quality standards for all our manufacturing sites
• Most of our sites are certified against FSSC 22000, but we still have a few certified under HACCP. The audits were conducted by DQS, an international certification body
• We completed audits for all our external warehouse facilities, including Tiger Brands facilities and third-party warehouses. Out of 22 warehouses, 11 have received certification, 10 have been recommended for certification and are awaiting certificates,and one will need to be re-audited due to the impact of the July 2021 civil unrest and looting in South Africa. The audits were conducted by DNV, an international accredited registrar and classification society. We maintained certifications against the FSSC 22000 or HACCP system for all our manufacturing facilities
• We completed an audit of our Home and Personal Care (HPC) site against the ISO 9001 quality management system standard. ISO 9001 is the world's most recognised quality management system standard, and this has replaced our system based on the HPC 420 protocol. The site performed well in the audit, and we expect certification in November 2021. The audit was conducted by DQS, an international certification body
• We have made good progress on implementing the ISO 17025 standard for laboratories at our Central Micro Laboratory, through which we conduct microbiological testing of our products from our inland factories. We expect certification from the South AfricanNational Accreditation System (SANAS) in 2022. This process was initially delayed in 2021 due to internal backlogs at SANAS
• We initiated HACCP risk assessment reviews with the assistance of an industry expert and the Centre for Food Safety at Stellenbosch University
• We remain a member of the European Hygiene Engineering and Design Group (EHEDG), and will use their guidelines as the manufacturing hygiene standards across our operations from 2022
• We completed the development of Manufacturing Excellence Customs and Practices (MECP) for quality, and our implementation of this initiative is largely on track. We have successfully launched the MECP for quality, including quality standard practices and quality assessment checklist, across 10 priority sites, and are nearing completion of the quality pillar book. The baseline assessments for these priority sites were conducted by our Quality Centre of Excellence (CoE).

The regular training of staff is a key part of our approach to ensuring effective food safety and quality management. We conduct ongoing quality and food safety-related training and refresher training at all our manufacturing sites, and conduct additional training as needed for quality and non-quality functions. To support our identification of training needs, we developed an online tool for conducting skills assessments of the quality functions that cover both technical and behavioural attributes. Together with Optimum, we successfully tested and piloted the tool this year, and will be rolling it out early in 2022.

In 2021, we delivered the following training initiatives:

• Quality e-learning modules rolled-out across all relevant functions
• A series of food safety lectures, delivered through Stellenbosch University
• Microbiological training for quality and non-quality functions, delivered by Microchem
• EHEDG hygienic design training for quality, maintenance and process engineering functions
• EHEDG equipment certification training for quality, maintenance and process engineering functions
• MEPPM quality training for selected production managers
• FSSC 22000 internal auditor training for the Quality Leadership Team (QLT).

Our 2021 quality performance

KPI		2021 target	2021	2020	2019
Number of public recalls		0	1	0	0
Percentage reduction in market place incidents (%)		30	40	25	35
Percentage reduction in complaints (%)		12	25	5	18
Percentage reduction in foreign object complaints (%)		12	35
Percentage reduction in health-related complaints (%)		12	57	NR
Percentage reduction in insects complaints (%)		12	2

NR – not reported.

We improved our quality performance significantly in 2021, achieving a 25% reduction in consumer complaints (2020: 5%) and a 40% reduction in marketplace incidents (2020: 25%). Additionally, we defined three new KPIs that focus on issues related to consumer complaints: foreign object complaints, health-related complaints and insects complaints. We reduced complaints in each of these areas by 35%, 57%, and 2% respectively, as indicated in the table above.

We will continue to raise the bar during 2022 under the guidance of our strategy and renewed annual targets. Assessments throughout the distribution chain will continue, with the inclusion of the return-centres and trans-shipment warehouses. These facilities start their certification cycle with gap audits aiming at certification in 2022.