Set Of Vendor Expectations

In 2008, we began sharing, and measuring compliance with, our Set of Vendor Expectations, a set of guidelines that outlines what we expect of our vendors regarding overall legal compliance, labor conditions (including child labor, wages and benefits, hours of work, freedom of association, discrimination and abuse, and health and safety), and environmental responsibility. For measuring compliance, we created a set of tools, including self-ssessments, surveys, on-site assessments by GMCR staff, and commissioned audits of vendor facilities. We tested these tools by auditing our own Waterbury, VT, facility.

We performed our first supplier audit in September 2008. For the first audit, we chose the firm that manufactures all our Keurig Brewers – the Simatelex organization. They operate three factories in Shenzhen, in the Guangdong province of China. We audited one factory – the Xin Fan facility. We will receive the final audit report in FY ’09 and will work with Simatelex to understand and act on the findings in that report.

Our hope is that this level of engagement helps both us and our supply-chain partners on the path to becoming better citizens and more sustainable businesses.