Modern Slavery Act Statement

C & W Berry recognises that all businesses have an obligation to prevent slavery and human trafficking. Every company must do its share to eradicate this modern day scourge. C & W Berry will do all in its power to prevent slavery and human trafficking within its business and within the supply chains through which it operates.

C & W Berry is a supplier of construction materials based in Leyland, Lancashire. All trading outlets and employees are based in the UK and the annual turnover is in excess of £36m.

Our business consists of a joiners workshop manufacturing be-spoke joinery items, a sawmill and treatment plants processing timber components and a single sales outlet covering builders’ merchanting, plumbing and heating merchant, electrical wholesaling, ironmongery and hardware distribution, and insulation distribution.

Our supply chains relate to the sourcing of construction materials.

C & W Berry is committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business and to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships.

• We operate to ensure fairness in the recruitment retention and development of all employees and seek to comply with all applicable employment legislation and to provide a work environment where employees are treated with respect, dignity and consideration
• C & W Berry monitors its supply chains and its suppliers to ensure, so far as is possible, that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place within those supply chains

As part of our commitment to identify and eradicate slavery and human trafficking from within our business and from those businesses with which we interact, we:

• Work closely with our supply chains to ensure compliance with legislative obligations and we expect those organisations to have suitable anti-slavery and human trafficking policies and processes
• We seek to build long standing relationships with suppliers and to make clear our expectations of ethical business behaviour from them
• We have in place systems to encourage the reporting of concerns and the protection of whistle blowers

C & W Berry has a zero tolerance view to slavery and human trafficking and we expect that view to prevail in our supply chain and contractors.

Directors and Senior Managers within C & W Berry are responsible for compliance in their respective departments, and for their supplier relationships.

To ensure appropriate levels or risk awareness in respect of modern slavery and human trafficking, we provide training to relevant members of staff and, in particular, to senior Managers in our Buying Department and our Personnel Department. All Directors in the business have been briefed on the subject.

We believe that being a single site business where the directors of the business have direct contact with all members of staff and are directly involved in the recruitment process, renders the risk of undetected slavery occurring within the business as very low. There is a high degree of confidence that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place within the business.

New systems to monitor supplier performance in this regard have been implemented, but as yet are not sufficiently embedded to give any level of confidence that they are effective. Future updated statements will report on the effectiveness of these systems.

This statement is made to pursuant to Section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes C & W Berry’s slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending October 2020.