Supplier Engagement

Supplier Guiding Principles

Our Supplier Guiding Principles (SGPs) apply to our upstream supply chain and define both our mandatory requirements, as well as our aspirational destinations, for the conduct and sustainable operation of our supplier network.

Our SGPs were developed using industry best practices and internationally recognized standards, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the International Bill of Human Rights, and the principles set forth in the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

These principles continue to be included in our standard contract language and are publicly available in 26 languages through ourSupplier Hub.

Risk Assessment & Due Diligence

Our global supply chain touches the lives of communities around the world. It is our responsibility to make sure that our value chain has a positive impact. Our suppliers are expected to read and acknowledge our Supplier Guiding Principles and agree to uphold these principles throughout their supply chain as part of their contractual obligation to Kraft Heinz. We take a risk-based approach to social due diligence and prioritize social compliance audits at suppliers with commodities and in countries that present the highest human rights risk.

Our risk-based approach leverages profile information from Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQs) filled out by our supply chain partners, as well as the inherent risks of country and industry. In 2023, we expanded our partnership with global assurer LRQA to conduct a commodity level risk assessment that highlighted commodities with the highest human rights risks. As a result, we have cross-referenced this information with our total global spend to prioritize where our due diligence and compliance efforts would have the biggest influence for impact.

In 2023, we maintained our partnership with EcoVadis. Through this platform, our indirect supply chain partners filled out SAQs that were reviewed and scored by EcoVadis. We also continued to work with Sedex to gather Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audits (SMETA) from all of our supply chain partners. By using Sedex as an industry-wide accepted audit tool, this aligned approach will allow us to consolidate data gathering. If a Kraft Heinz supplier has recently done a SMETA audit for another company, they can simply share the same report with us on the Sedex platform and it will be checked against our Supplier Guiding Principles for compliance.

Kraft Heinz is also a member of global forum AIM-Progress, where we work with our peer consumer goods companies to co-create solutions and share best practices to drive positive human rights impact in supply chains quickly, efficiently, and at scale. AIM-Progress members actively seek tools and services for seamless risk assessment and due diligence that also allow compliance reporting at scale. We leverage our collaboration to demand the highest standards from service providers to develop tools and mechanisms that’ll help industry transformation for due diligence.

Engagement through Education

Engaging our global procurement team and our suppliers on ESG is a critical part of our responsible sourcing program. Kraft Heinz Ownerversity, our online learning and development platform, features several employee-focused trainings about the SGPs. All Kraft Heinz procurement professionals are trained using this tool and e-training is mandatory for new members.

Supplier Diversity Program

Here at Kraft Heinz, we believe in the impact of having a diverse supply chain to promote inclusion and innovation. The Kraft Heinz Supplier Diversity program embeds our company Values into our supply base to better reflect the communities that we serve. The program plays a critical role in bringing diverse suppliers to the forefront of our business while also addressing systemic barriers standing between under-represented groups and opportunities at Kraft Heinz. We believe in the power of diverse perspectives, and in opening doors as we move into the future, which is why we are focused on building a long-lasting program for the fair inclusion of diverse suppliers.

At Kraft Heinz, we define diverse suppliers as suppliers whose company is at least 51 percent owned, operated, and managed by women, people of color, LBTGQ+, persons with disabilities, veterans, and other recognized minorities. Additionally, the Company continues to partner with small businesses and those suppliers certified by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s HUBZone program, which fuels small business growth in historically underutilized business zones.

In 2023, we expanded our Supplier Diversity program with additional dedicated resources whose focus is to further grow the program. We have instituted an internal community of Supplier Diversity Representatives known as our Diversity Champions across the North American procurement team. Kraft Heinz Supplier Diversity Champions are subject matter experts in their respective categories, assigned to advise and advance our diversity agenda within their specific purchasing areas. To establish our multi-year sustainable supplier diversity plan, we are leveraging technology, diving deep into scalable data enrichment to improve data availability, creating playbooks, and continuing to build partnerships with Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), DisabilityIN, and National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). As the Supplier Diversity Program matures, we look forward to the future partnerships with our suppliers and communities within the food manufacturing industry.

Looking Ahead

Kraft Heinz remains committed to increasing our spend with diverse suppliers. As such, we are constantly reviewing our aspirations against industry standards and benchmarks. As our Supplier Diversity program continues to evolve, we anticipate we will further review and refine our supplier diversity aspirations.