About Us
Our Businesses
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Responsibility
Media
Careers
About Us
Our Businesses
Investors
Responsibility
Media
Careers
The people across our businesses are united by our purpose, culture and passion for delivering for our customers. We empower them to innovate and support them to grow and develop.
A senior engineer at Allied Mills, Manchester, UK
We employ more than 138,000 people and have operations in 56 countries across the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia Pacific.
Our businesses prioritise safeguarding our people when they are working or travelling for business, including contractors and visitors to our sites. We have processes and programmes in place and strive to foster cultures to ensure their safety and wellbeing at all times. Our businesses take a holistic approach to safety and wellbeing, considering aspects such as mental, physical and financial wellbeing as well as physical safety.
Loss of life in any of the operations across the Group is unacceptable and we expect all colleagues and contractors to return home after work as well as when they arrived. As such, we are deeply saddened to report three fatal injuries to contractors1. Two of the incidents involved contract delivery drivers, who both tragically lost their lives in road traffic accidents, one in Tanzania and the other in Spain. The third death occurred in Zambia in August 2025 where a contractor was fatally injured when he was inflating the tyre of an agricultural vehicle.
Following these tragic events, our priority was to ensure the families and colleagues of those who died were supported. A thorough root cause investigation was conducted by the relevant businesses, and the learnings shared with all our operations.
All of our businesses have a strong focus on contractor management and supervision. Vehicle and driver safety is a top priority and all our businesses are working with their contracted hauliers to ensure a robust focus on driver safety.
All of our businesses must comply with our Group Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy. They supplement this with additional local and business-specific policies. Responsibility for ensuring compliance with these policies sits with the chief executives of the various businesses. Each business also has a nominated director with specific accountability for health, safety, and wellbeing, including mental health.
In line with the Group Policy, our businesses focus their safety efforts in five key areas:
Across the Group, we have identified the following key on-site and off-site critical-to-life safety risks:
To support our businesses, we are developing resources and toolkits focused on helping them to address these critical-to-life safety risks.
The on-site employee Lost Time Injury (‘LTI’) rate in 2025 is 0.41% compared with 0.39% last year. LTIs cover a broad range of situations and the majority result in a low number of days lost. On average 5% fewer days were lost this year per injury. The businesses are focused on driving initiatives to reduce the LTIs while encouraging a culture of reporting. The on-site contractor LTI rate in 2025 has decreased from 0.34% to 0.25%.
We are disappointed the employee LTI rate has increased, and all of our businesses have put actions in place to reduce risk and address the causes of these incidents. Our businesses remain focused on leading indicators and on investing in risk reduction initiatives. In 2025 £48m was invested in reducing health and safety risks across a wide range of operational hazards.
The businesses continue to focus on their safety culture, governance approach and processes to keep their people safe, especially those related to managing critical-to-life activities. This includes increasing or improving the number and quality of safety observations, with additional focus on line manager training and leadership initiatives to increase their involvement and direct ownership of safety. All the businesses have improved their reporting of near misses and have placed increasing focus on reporting and investigating significant events linked to their critical risks. The learnings from any significant incidents are shared across the divisions by Group.
Many of our businesses are now starting to explore how artificial intelligence can assist them to identify risks to reduce accidents and improve efficiencies in their risk management systems.
See our Data page for more details on our health and safety data.
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 346 | 352 | 347 | 392 | 425 |
| Employee rate | 0.39% | 0.36% | 0.35% | 0.39% | 0.41% |
AB Vista colleagues, Ystrad Mynach, Wales
The mental health and wellbeing of our people is central to who we are and how we perform. By supporting a healthy and engaged workforce, we strengthen our capacity to deliver sustainable results, adapt to change, and remain a place where people want to work. We encourage a culture of open conversations with the aim of removing the stigma associated with mental health, including supporting employees to share their personal stories. We continue to invest in support across the Group, including programmes designed to raise awareness and provide practical assistance, resources and tools across all areas of wellbeing, including mental and financial. Our businesses use multiple communication methods to ensure our different workforce audiences have easy access when they need it, including notice boards, shift briefings and virtual platforms.
The line managers in many of our businesses share information on wellbeing support and explore any necessary adjustments to ensure our employees can perform effectively throughout their careers with us. This includes temporary or permanent adjustments to work scheduling and workloads.
We aim to continuously improve our holistic approach to supporting our people with their physical, mental and financial wellbeing. We utilise feedback from external organisations, such as CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark UK 100, to benchmark our progress and reporting transparency.
We continue to provide financial and mental wellbeing tools and resources, easy access to employee assistance programmes and information across a range of topics to support our people internationally. We also invest in training and resources for our line managers, recognising the pivotal role they play in the wellbeing of our employees at key lifecycle moments of on-boarding, career development conversations, performance reviews return to work discussions and stress risk assessments.
Many of our businesses also have formal wellbeing activities in place for their people, like AB Mauri’s ‘Thrive’ health and wellbeing programme, AB Agri’s employee networks and Primark’s ‘Spark’ wellbeing programme.
Engaging diverse talent is a competitive advantage for us and strengthens the Group’s ability to deliver long-term success. Our businesses work hard to ensure we attract and develop diverse talent and establish meaningful connections with the varied communities we serve.
Our Board Diversity Policy sets out our groupwide approach and is complemented by local business policies, DEI teams and dedicated programmes. These initiatives aim to support all employees, including women, ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, through equitable access to employment, training, career development and promotion opportunities. We are committed both to enabling our people to perform at their best and realise their career potential, and to eliminating discrimination and bias that can harm their mental health and physical wellbeing.
Our Group Inclusion Network, made up of colleagues from across all our segments, accelerates change by sharing knowledge, best practice and ideas. We have almost 480 DEI advocates across the Group, and provide access to training and thought leadership from expert external partners across culture and inclusion topics, incorporating allyship, handling difficult conversations, neurodiversity inclusion, racial and ethnic diversity, female careers and leadership, disability inclusion and LGBTQIA+ inclusion.
Production colleagues at Westmill's noodle factory in Trafford, UK
All our businesses have access to materials and training they can use to raise awareness of unconscious bias and create more inclusive cultures. The materials are provided in eight of our key business languages and we have over 100 trained facilitators across the Group.
A significant number of our businesses use the Develop Diverse platform to support the consistent use of inclusive language on business policies, job adverts, job descriptions and interview questions. The insights around the importance of inclusive language have also been adopted in line manager training, such as Primark’s Hiring Inclusively programme. We continue to raise awareness and educate our people, advocates and leaders on the evolving field of diversity, equity and inclusion. We partner with external experts to provide robust and thorough materials on a range of topics that include disability inclusion, female careers and leadership, racial and ethnic diversity, neurodiversity inclusion and LGBTQIA+ inclusion.
We utilise our dedicated internal website to connect everyone across the Group with our DEI and wellbeing corporate partners, easy to use resources, training materials and internal case studies highlighting great practice and learnings including British Sugar’s 'conscious inclusion’ e-learning module, and Twinings' health and wellbeing agenda. We foster active communities of advocates and leaders who are driving their local plans and identifying where synergies could be helpful. Over recent years our most active communities have been Menopause & Menstruation, Disability & Neurodiversity, and Wellbeing, including a network for those leading Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) groups in our businesses.
Our leaders and line managers are empowered and equipped with the skills needed to create inclusive cultures in their businesses and local settings. Unconscious bias training, cultural awareness programmes and a range of tools are also provided to support our businesses in promoting inclusivity.
Our ‘Women in ABF’ network, which has been running for 15 years, has helped women develop skills and business awareness, and build connections that enhance their current performance and future careers prospects. Women across the Group have access to virtual events featuring both internal and external speakers as well as valuable networking opportunities.
We prioritise attracting and developing a broader range of talent, maintaining our focus on gender and ethnicity imbalances through identifying and removing barriers that could discourage talent from being attracted to or joining ABF, or from advancing to leadership positions.
Overall, the gender balance of the Group is that women make up 57% of our total global workforce.
We remain focused on addressing gender imbalances and are committed to a continued focus on ensuring women are represented at all levels, including those in the most senior roles.
We are pleased that our talent pipeline for senior roles is now more gender balanced. Women account for 39% of senior management roles across the Group, and we have an increasing proportion of women among our groupwide Executive Leadership Programme alumni.
At the most senior levels, which covers those reporting to the divisional chief executives and group functional directors, our gender balance as reported to FTSE Women Leaders for 2025 is 27%. This is disappointing as we have focused significant effort on our talent pipeline as outlined above. This percentage in part reflects internal restructuring of leadership teams to align to strategic priorities. It also illustrates that this way of measuring the seniority of women in the organisation is an inflexible tool for a portfolio of diversely-sized businesses, as part of the change in score this year reflects women taking on larger roles that happen to be at the next reporting level in some of our larger businesses. Where the size of roles (in terms of scale and complexity) is considered, as opposed to reporting line only, over 30% of senior roles are held by women.
Our leadership teams across the Group remain highly multicultural and ethnically diverse, with 29 nationalities reporting to the divisional chief executives and group functional directors. Globally, 18% of these roles are held by leaders from minority ethnic backgrounds based on UK definitions, up from 12% in 2023. We commit to a continued focus on ensuring those from ethnic minorities are represented in our most senior roles.
We prioritise attracting and developing a broader range of talent, maintaining our focus on gender and ethnicity imbalances through identifying and removing barriers that could discourage talent from joining ABF or from advancing to leadership positions.
We voluntarily report on our overall gender pay gap for employees in Great Britain (‘GB’) on page 134 of our Annual Report. Each of our GB-based businesses with over 250 employees also reports on their own gender pay gap, with these reports published on their websites.
Our businesses’ gender and ethnicity pay gap reports share some inspirational business-level insights about the actions being taken to enable all employees to successfully grow their careers with us.
Following AB Agri UK’s successful start in reporting UK ethnicity pay gap last year, they are joined this year by Twinings Ovaltine, and we anticipate more of our UK businesses reporting in the coming years.
| United Kingdom | Europe | The Americas | Asia Pacific | Africa | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of employees | 44202 | 49445 | 8417 | 10559 | 25532 |
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 127912 | 132273 | 133487 | 138271 | 138155 |
| Employee rate | 53% | 54% | 55% | 57% | 57% |
The engagement and development of our people is fundamental to the performance and long-term sustainability of our businesses. A highly-engaged workforce drives productivity, innovation and operational excellence, while robust and relevant development programmes help to ensure we have the talent and capabilities to meet future challenges. By investing in our people, we aim to grow a culture of continuous improvement that fuels stronger financial outcomes, enhanced customer satisfaction and a competitive edge.
We prioritise open communication across all our businesses, providing multiple channels for employees to share their views and engage in meaningful two-way dialogue. In addition to direct conversations with managers and leaders, we use engagement surveys, discussion groups and digital forums to encourage feedback and foster transparency.
In her role as designated Independent Non-Executive Director for workforce engagement, Annie Murphy leads activities that provide assurance to the Board that our businesses have cultures of openness, where our people can share their views and have their voices heard and acted upon. All non-executive directors on the Board have now committed to participating in engagement sessions with colleagues across the Group. Read more about workforce engagement, including how employees are consulted so that their views are taken into account in decisions likely to affect their interests, on pages 99 and 100 of our Annual Report.
A lab technician at SPI Pharma in Grand Haven, MI, United States
We are focused on attracting and nurturing talent, and creating opportunities for professional and personal growth. Our businesses support their people to leverage their unique skills and diverse abilities through a range of development opportunities. This equips our people to thrive in their current roles and progress their careers within their business or across the Group.
Our businesses encourage employee involvement in their performance, with many offering incentives to employees based on the performance of the business where they work.
Our businesses engage with their people in a variety of ways to ensure employees across the Group can share their views and opinions openly, and know businesses will listen and act on their suggestions. Mechanisms include engagement surveys, social platforms like Zing in Primark, listening groups, town hall events and local events. At present, over 96% of our businesses are using engagement surveys provided by experts in the field including Willis Towers Watson, Mercer, Peakon Workday and Great Place to Work. The small proportion of businesses not utilising engagement surveys include some newly acquired businesses.
The frequency of engagement surveys varies from business to business and region to region. 96% of those using engagement surveys ran one in the last financial year, inviting 89% of their people to participate, with an 81% response rate. Across the Group all of our businesses are focused on increasing the proportion of their people they invite to participate in engagement surveys. A great example of a mechanism used to increase participation included the use of QR codes so more of our factory, field or retail employees could join in despite not having laptops or desk-based computers.
Themes and action plans from the feedback are identified and developed at a local level. However, we see strong, positive themes emerging for the Group overall, such as pride in the organisation, inspirational leadership, the quality of supportive line management, opportunity for learning and growth, flexible and inclusive environments, focus on colleague wellbeing and safety, and the benefits of autonomy and accountability in our business model.
We are focused on attracting and nurturing talent, and creating opportunities for professional and personal growth. Our businesses support their people to leverage their unique skills and diverse abilities through a range of development opportunities. This equips our people to thrive in their current roles and progress their careers within their business or across the Group.
We have multiple development programmes across the Group, with groupwide executive leadership and functional excellence programmes for senior leaders, while the businesses focus on development interventions for cohorts within their businesses. In addition, the Group works with a range of partners to provide bespoke development initiatives, including coaching and mentoring for leaders and potential successors.
Across our businesses, Primark’s Early Careers programme is creating a talent pipeline for the future, our sugar businesses in Africa have executive development courses created in partnership with Toyota Wessels Institute for Manufacturing Studies, and AB Mauri has a Global Technology Centre to deliver technical bakery training. The Group provides an Executive Leadership Programme for those in senior roles, and functional development programmes to support Finance excellence and enhanced business acumen within our People and Performance community. We run an induction programme for new colleagues in senior roles across the Group to enable them to form networks and understand the purpose, culture and values of the Group and how we operate at our best.
Our groupwide Career Conversations site gives people in all our businesses access to advice, guidance, resources and templates to plan their careers, as well as job adverts for opportunities across the Group.
1. In 2025, we reported two contractor fatalities in the year to 31 July and a further fatal incident in August 2025, which will be reported in next years data.
* Numbers prior to 2025 have been restated to reflect the disposal of AB Sugar China, disposed of in 2024. The adjustment ensures comparability and accuracy in reporting the Group’s continuing operations.
