PEOPLE
Our People & Our Communities.
At Lactalis, we care about our people and our communities.
We’re a family-owned business, with headquarters in Laval and managed by Emmanuel Besnier, the great grandson of Lactalis’ founder, André Besnier. Our long-standing family ownership gives us a long-term view and enables us to operate on a global scale. Lactalis is constantly evolving but our core values of ambition, commitment and simplicity remain the same. This blend of heritage and dynamism makes working for Lactalis truly unique.
We champion diversity and employee empowerment. Our people have access to extensive learning and development opportunities where they can deepen their role-specific expertise, management, and leadership skills.
We encourage employees to share their thoughts about working for Lactalis in the UK through a comprehensive employee engagement survey and regular pulse surveys. The results are cascaded openly and transparently, and employees are involved in action planning. Our culture of continuous improvement makes our UK businesses great places to work.
OUR DE&I COMMITMENTS
The Lactalis Group values a workforce that has a rich diversity of profiles and skills.
It’s vital to our success and growth and has proven to be an asset in helping our Group to transition to more sustainable production models.
Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy sets out our commitments and the principles and measures that guide us. It’s important to us that all employees enjoy an inclusive and equitable working environment, compliant with UK regulation.
We know that the ways we provide an inclusive workplace must continue to evolve, so we’ve set ourselves these targets:
100% of all newcomers trained in DE&I starting from 2024
100% of our managers trained in DE&I by the end of 2024, starting with the Lactalis Main Board
No more than 60% of one gender by 2033 in leadership positions
OUR PROGRESS SO FAR
Gender Equality
We’re committed to gender equality and this is reflected
in our structure with 50% of management roles in our
UK head office filled by women and 40% of our board
members being women.
GroceryAid D&I In Grocery Programme
We are proud partners of the D&I in Grocery programme which promotes and celebrates diversity, equality, and inclusion within the grocery industry. Through the monthly Learning Labs, we’ve broadened our knowledge and ten colleagues attended the 2023 D&I in Grocery LIVE! event where retailers and suppliers shared DE&I best practices.
Lactalis Leadership Development
The Lactalis Leadership Model was launched in 2022 and gives existing managers and our leaders of tomorrow, a roadmap to engage them on the skills we’re looking for in order to grow and develop their career within the business. The model is based upon 4 key leadership areas; Care, Share, Dare & Inspire and each has a number of behaviours to model what good leadership looks like.
Throughout 2023, we continued to roll out training workshops on the model.
The Learning Factory
We’ve continued to build our online learning platform and have rolled out a global induction programme to help our new colleagues settle into our unique, family culture. We’ve increased the number of available courses, providing access to more soft skills and technical skills training options.
The Learning Factory saw remarkable growth in uptake in 2023 with over 1,192 courses completed, compared to 150 in 2022.
Apprenticeship and Internships
We’re continuing our commitment in 2024 to develop future talent through our established Internship and Apprenticeship programmes.
These include:
ENGINEERING APPRENTICES
Over 4 years which includes day release to college, the completion of a Modern Apprenticeship, gaining significant experience and developing a portfolio.
INCREASING OUR INTAKE OF INTERNS
As part of a 4-year university degree. In 2023, we recruited 7 new interns.
THE EDEN PROGRAMME
Recruits learn our manufacturing processes while studying for a foundation degree in Dairy Technology at University Centre Reaseheath.
At Lactalis we want to create rewarding and enjoyable places to work and we’re committed to tracking employee sentiment through a confidential survey managed by a third-party provider. We use the feedback to shape action plans for improvement.
In November and December 2023, we ran our latest employee engagement survey. There were some positive trends since the last survey in 2021, particularly in our factories.
87% of employees took part in the survey
Areas we scored highly in were employees having a good understanding of what’s expected of them in their role, Health & Safety rules and company values. We also scored well for managers acting in alignment with the company values.
The results also told us that employees believe there are now better learning, training and development opportunities. There was also a big uplift for the question about our support of local communities with a 23% improvement from 2021.
OUR FUTURE FOCUS
People, Development and Training
MENTORING
In 2024, as part of major partner status in the D&I in Grocery programme, we will be participating for the first time in the Grocery programme’s mentor/mentee initiative. We have 2 mentors and 2 mentees which will develop and support our colleagues internally and across the whole Grocery sector.
We will also continue our mentoring partnerships through the IGD Mentoring programme. This year is our 8th year of participation and we have 8 individuals from our businesses participating in the programme.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We’ve made positive progress in 2023 and we’ll be continuing our commitment to DE&I throughout 2024.
In 2024 we will be running a new programme of DE&I training for our Board as well as our senior leadership team. Learning will include Unconscious Bias, Inclusion, Psychological Safety and Allyship.
A key focus will be on gender equality and measuring our progress through measurable key performance indicators such as:
- Measuring our male vs. female split of employees.
- Measuring how many managers and senior leaders we have who are male or female
CHARITY PARTNERSHIPS
We’ve built long-term, collaborative relationships with our key charity partners, involving different people from across our business to create real progress and lasting impact.
Our factories’ community impact
Our factories’ community impact
Colleagues at our manufacturing sites nominated and voted for the charities they wanted to support through their fundraising activities.
Our Stranraer team chose Macmillan Cancer Support, holding a Dinner Dance, coffee mornings and a Christmas party for employees’ children raising £1,197. In the wider Stranraer community, our colleagues also supported local food banks and day centres with food and financial assistance as well as helping to clean up the local industrial estate.
Our Lubborn team chose to support Prostate Cancer UK. They focused on raising awareness through engaging events and raising money to donate back to the charity. Our colleagues in Lubborn are also proud to sponsor their local junior football team, Perry Street U15.
GroceryAid
GroceryAid
In January 2024, we retained our Gold Status in the GroceryAid awards, in recognition and awareness of our fundraising and volunteering activities across the business.
GroceryAid provides invaluable emotional, practical and financial support and we’re proud to be part of the wider industry team supporting its many initiatives and grocery colleagues who are in need.
Anthony Nolan
Anthony Nolan
2023 was a record year not only in terms of fundraising and awareness but also with more colleagues getting involved in events. Working with Anthony Nolan is important for our employees as it’s a way to remember our former colleague, Julien Desilles, who sadly passed away from blood cancer in November 2020.
We raised money through a wide choice of activities organised by our social, health and wellness team. Through a virtual Cook Along with our development chef, leisure and outdoor activities, evening social events and brave employees taking on different challenges, there was an opportunity for everyone to get involved.
We’ve raised nearly £60k for Anthony Nolan since 2021 which is enough to fund nearly 1.5k people joining the stem cell register. Seven employees also signed up as potential lifesavers by agreeing to be donors on the register.
FareShare
FareShare
2023 was our 7th consecutive year supporting FareShare which is the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste.
In 2023, we donated a total of 107.9 tonnes of food, received by 1,759 charities and community groups:
• 480 working with children and young people
• 164 working with people experiencing homelessness
• 84 older people’s community groups
• 34 supporting asylum seekers and refugees
Over the last seven years, we’ve diverted more than 600 tonnes of product from waste, helping people in need and supporting our commitment to sustainability. We’ll be continuing our work with FareShare in 2024 and working towards our next milestone of creating two million meals.
The Galloway Gathering Project
The Galloway Gathering Project
In May 2023, our Scottish Cheddar brand, Galloway, partnered specifically with FareShare Scotland to deliver 10,000 hot meals to Scottish residents.
The aim was to support charities tackling food poverty and loneliness in Scottish communities by encouraging residents to gather together for a hot meal at their local community kitchen or café.
As well as supplying 1.2 tonnes of cheese to make the meals, Galloway Cheddar also donated £19,500 in support FareShare’s work across Scotland through its partners FareShare Central and South East Scotland (Cyrenians) and FareShare Glasgow & the West of Scotland (Move On).
OUR FUTURE FOCUS
Our people and communities
We’ll continue working closely with our existing charity partners of FareShare, GroceryAid and Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) and our employee-chosen charities of Anthony Nolan, Prostate Cancer UK and Macmillan Cancer Support throughout 2024. We’ll organise a suggestion scheme and subsequent vote in November 2024 to decide our charity partners for 2025.
We’ll be organising activities to coincide with World Clean Up Day in September 2024, aligning with Lactalis Group.
Creating Social, Health and Wellness teams across our business with members from each department and work area where possible, has been a really positive step. With increased representation and a wider range of events, we’ve increased participation, brought people together and created lasting impact for our communities and charity partners.
SUSTAINABILITY PROGRESS UPDATE 2024
Find out more about our sustainability journey in our 2024 Sustainability Progress Update Report