MODERN SLAVERY & HUMAN TRAFFICKING STATEMENT
Introduction
Little Moons are frozen and chilled mochi, a fusion of Eastern and Western cuisine – soft and chewy rice flour dough wrapped around sweet fillings to create colourful little balls of joy.
We make treats that brighten your day. What brightens ours is knowing we’re sparking positive change and that we’re looking after every person at every step of making our delicious products.
We’re committed to staying Little as we grow. This means a lower carbon footprint, sourcing responsibly and doing business with respect.
We understand that food production is a high-risk industry for modern slavery. We also recognise that our business wouldn’t be what it is without the people who grow our ingredients, manufacture our products, and distribute our mochi around the world.
This Statement
This Statement outlines Little Moons’ commitment to preventing slavery, human trafficking, and broader human rights issues in our business activities, and explains the steps we have in place to identify and manage modern slavery and human trafficking risks.
We have zero-tolerance towards modern slavery and human trafficking. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to prevent slavery and human trafficking. Our aim is to have no slavery or human trafficking in our direct and indirect business operations.
This Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement relates to actions and activities during the 2024 financial year (ending December 31st 2024), looking forward to 2025.
Governance
This Statement is an output of our Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy which tracks the governance and monitoring of this Statement.
We ensure this Statement is updated annually to reflect our progress in addressing modern slavery risks. The responsibility for updating this Statement sits cross functionally between people, procurement, supply chain, technical and sustainability teams, reflecting how human rights impacts many aspects of Little Moons’ business. We ensure this Statement is reviewed and approved by our Board of Directors.
Our business and operations
Today, Little Moons has 317 permanent employees across our offices in Western Europe, and our factories in two locations in the UK. Around 10% of our total employees are agency staff. Little Moons produces over 150 million mochi a year, selling 26 flavours of chilled and frozen mochi in over 35 countries.
Little Moons represents a proud blend of global cultures, heritage and flavours. Our packaging derives from 7 suppliers and our ingredients are sourced from 42 suppliers who source from over 90 countries.
Our actions
Policies, processes and training
Our team
We believe that awareness and education are crucial in combating modern slavery and human trafficking. Little Moons has employee Welcome Booklets which we ensure outline our Company values. We ensure our People policies, such as anti-corruption, bribery, whistleblowing and modern slavery, are made easily accessible throughout employment via our online HR platform. We are committed to providing training to our employees to ensure they understand the signs of modern slavery and human trafficking, know how to report any concerns, and are aware of our policies and procedures to address such issues. We will ensure all employees complete an online training course annually.
We currently employee 10% of our workforce through a third-party staffing agency, principally servicing our factories. In 2025 we will ensure all labour agencies who are required to hold a Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authorities License are audited for this certificate, which guarantees that our worker agencies meet employment standards for our Movers and Makers. We aim to routinely audit our staffing agencies as part of our due diligence (every 1-3 years). We ensure a confidential whistleblowing helpline is maintained for all employees to report unethical practices, and will acknowledge receipt of query within 5 working days.
Our ingredient and packaging suppliers
We ensure all new ingredient and packaging Suppliers complete a Supplier Approval Questionnaire which provides us with an in-depth understanding of the supplier, their sourcing, and their values. We ensure Suppliers are only approved upon providing this information. During the onboarding of a new Supplier, we ensure a transparency assessment of their countries of origin is conducted. We have conducted a risk assessment of social and environmental risks of our ingredients, and in 2025 we aim to have engaged with those identified as high priority.
Little Moons has previously sent a Sustainability Questionnaire to suppliers, and in 2025 we will ensure this is embedded in our Supplier Approval Process, with responsible sourcing requirements built into supplier contracts. 4. Little Moons has a Code of Conduct which outlines our ethical, social, and environmental expectations of Suppliers, which we ensure all suppliers sign as part of their supplier approval.
Performance indicators
The Company uses the following key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure how effective we are in ensuring our practices towards identifying, managing, and preventing human rights risks.
Our team:
- Agencies: % agencies sign our Ethical Agency Standard
- Training: % employees undergoing annual Modern Slavery Training
Our suppliers:
- Code of Conduct: % suppliers signing our Code of Conduct (upon approval and any new revision)
- Ethical and Environmental Engagement: % high priority suppliers engaged with
Our governance:
- Updating this Statement to reflect our progress with current policies and processes
- Upholding our existing policies and processes as outlined in the Statement
Signed: Joanna Allen, CEO, 31.01.25
This statement was approved by the board of directors on 31.01.25
