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About Us
Our Businesses
Investors
Responsibility
Media
A colleague at AB Vista's technology and innovation centre in Ystrad Mynach, Wales
AB Agri offers a wide range of activities to broaden its colleagues’ knowledge and expand its talent pool. It provides people with opportunities to develop their full potential and positively contribute to the business’s goals. It also seeks to nurture and maintain a fair, innovative and inclusive culture where people can bring their whole selves to work every day.
AB Agri has seen a 44% reduction in its on-site Lost Time Injury (LTI) rate among employees, from 0.50% in 2023 to 0.28% in 2024. It considers its contractors valuable members of the workforce, and is pleased to report that in 2024, contractor LTIs reduced from three incidents to zero. AB Agri is committed to continuous improvement in reducing its overall injury rate year-on-year and its safety performance reflects the dedicated effort that is made to maintain a safe working environment for employees and contractors.
Health and safety is a fundamental pillar of AB Agri’s Target Zero programme, which also covers feed safety, site environmental compliance and security. Alongside its commitment to safety, it seeks to provide healthy working environments and enhance all colleagues’ working lives.
In 2023/24, AB Agri realigned its health, safety and environment support structure, taking into consideration growth areas across the businesses, and optimising support at the operational level with additional specialist expertise. Numerous risk reduction projects have been completed to ensure the safety of employees, contractors and visitors.
The integration of improved standards, training, awareness building and monitoring is fostering a proactive safety culture across AB Agri’s operations.
Improved management system standards support the global operations with consistent assurance protocols. AB Agri has made significant investment in establishing standards to mitigate core risks, which helps the businesses prioritise the 'get it right by design’ approach, and in improving communication with front-line workers.
AB Agri has continued strengthening its Target Zero culture amid business expansion. Target Zero training continues to be cascaded across the business, with an emphasis on the importance of attitude, behaviour, human factors and personal commitment. In 2023/24, these training programmes have seen significant engagement and success with nearly 4,000 e-learning health, safety and environment modules completed alongside monthly training led by subject matter experts. The ‘Take 2’ approach, which empowers people to stop and think before acting, was enhanced through new technology and the Target Zero calendar of bi-monthly activity.
Employee on-site Lost Time Injuries and Lost Time Injury Rate - Agriculture
AB Agri is dedicated to providing a healthy working environment and improving the quality of working lives for all colleagues. AB Agri participates annually in World Wellbeing Week, which aims to raise awareness of keeping fit and well, inside and outside of work. The most recent activities included a walking challenge where colleagues kept a track of how far they had moved that week and recorded their times. Collectively, almost 21,000km was recorded.
In addition, a number of services are in place to help colleagues balance work and family commitments, manage stress and enjoy a healthier lifestyle. These include:
A feed mill operator at ABN in Enstone, UK
AB Agri fosters a fair, innovative and inclusive culture through its DEI approach. It believes a thorough and robust approach to talent management leads to a diverse workforce and a welcoming environment for all. ‘This is Me’, the inclusion campaign at AB Agri, aims to create a sense of belonging where everyone feels comfortable being themselves.
It has established several employee network groups, such as PRIDE, Parents and Carers, Women at Work, Race and Ethnicity, Enable (Disability Inclusion) as well as support groups covering Menopause and Men as Carers. Each group has a sponsor from the senior leadership team and the leads for each group meet monthly with the AB Agri Chief Executive and Group People and Performance Director to discuss challenges, advocate for underrepresented groups and seek support.
AB Agri has set targets to increase workforce diversity, focusing on attracting, developing and retaining a more diverse workforce. Currently 36% of its workforce is female, with women receiving 36% of all promotions this year. The division has maintained a gender pay gap below 2% (0.4% in 2024) for the third year, reflecting its commitment to gender equality. Women make up nearly 40% of the executive team and the leadership teams now include 42% non-UK nationals, highlighting a diverse representation.
AB Agri prioritises fair and inclusive recruitment practices to ensure a diverse talent pool of candidates from a variety of sources, enabling the business to find the best candidate for each role. This commitment is supported by its applicant tracking system (Eploy), which achieved Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) certification this year. DAC ensures digital media accessibility for everyone, regardless of the platform, and meets best practices in accessibility standards and legislation.
AB Agri actively promotes gender balance when recruiting and selecting senior roles in the business by encouraging a balanced shortlist of male and female candidates. It also uses CV blinding practices to mitigate unconscious bias. Globally, all recruitment agencies working with AB Agri are required to adhere to the Group Supplier Code of Conduct. These agreements centrally reference AB Agri’s policies on Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Dignity at Work.
AB Agri partners with various organisations to inform internal process development and promote jobs externally.
Number of employees, highlighting percentage of women in workforce
These initiatives include:
Attracting talent to agriculture is an industry-wide challenge, with AB Agri’s customers facing an ongoing struggle to fill operational farm roles. Additionally, the industry must compete for the specialist talent needed to address shared challenges, including skills in technology, marketing, engineering and data insights.
Beyond internal skills development, AB Agri supports the next generation of food and farming talent. This includes sponsorship of the Nuffield Farming Scholarship programme, a 12-month placement for a Harper Adams University student, and funding for 11 PhD students by AB Vista, its feed additives technology business.
AB Agri also focuses on talent as a strategic advantage for the business. It offers a wide range of activities to broaden employee knowledge and cultivate a deeper talent pool. These initiatives empower people to realise their full potential and contribute positively to the business’s goals.
AB Agri provides opportunities for development within roles and facilitates broader career progression.
In 2023/24, over 1,000 delegates participated in 150 workshops. In addition to workshops, the psychometric assessment tool Insights Discovery is used by internal practitioners and coaches to support employees in understanding themselves and their teams more effectively.
Three new initiatives were launched in 2024:
AB Agri offers levy-funded apprenticeships for residents of England, with an expanded programme offering. In 2024, the first Level Seven programme was completed with distinction. By the end of 2024, 49 people will have fully completed apprenticeships in the last four years.
The talent programmes across AB Agri continue to deliver a significant return on investment, with one third of high-potential programme attendees in the last 12 months either promoted or given increased responsibilities within their current role immediately following programme attendance.
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A colleague at our Anhui Mill in China
Open communication is crucial, and AB Agri values employee feedback, ideas and suggestions. Its continuous listening platform ‘Pulse’ allows colleagues to voice their opinions and contribute to improvement efforts. Anonymous feedback channels are also available for employee use.
Conducted quarterly to ensure timely celebration of successes and addressing of issues, the survey results provide valuable insights for both line managers and people and performance teams. Line managers are provided with toolkits to facilitate regular action planning sessions where teams discuss their results and any potential improvements to be made.
The Pulse survey assesses employee engagement across various drivers, including wellbeing, inclusion and corporate social responsibility. All three areas currently rank among the highest scoring metrics in the survey, exceeding the benchmark provided by Qualtrics. AB Agri’s overall engagement score across the division currently sits at 76%, also exceeding the benchmark.
AB Agri understands the importance of keeping colleagues informed. Launched in 2019, ‘Between the Lines’ is an internal publication featuring personal stories from across the company, serving as a platform for fostering a global, inclusive culture. Now distributed in seven languages, it has become a crucial component of the division. Digitally and in print, the publication reaches all locations at least three times per year. In 2024 it won the ‘Best Internal Publication: Digital’ category at the Internal Communications and Engagement Awards.
