How Pilgrim’s Europe Is Scaling Due Diligence across 1,600+ Suppliers
Background
Pilgrim’s Europe is a leading UK and European food company. It produces own label and branded fresh chicken, pork and lamb, alongside chilled and frozen ready meals, snacking ranges, and added value and food service products.
Its supply base spans more than 1,600 suppliers, with approximately 600 at tier one. These suppliers provide everything from meat and poultry to the herbs, spices and packaging used in finished products.
As customer expectations around supply chain due diligence grew, Pilgrim’s needed a scalable way to manage supplier data, onboarding and compliance across this large and complex network. To get more from its Sedex data, Pilgrim’s brought in two Sedex Sustainability Coordinators: dedicated specialists who added the capacity the team needed to clean up supplier data, onboard new suppliers and close out audit non-conformances, without adding permanent headcount.
The challenge
Pilgrim’s Europe has been a Sedex member for many years, initially using the platform mainly to link its suppliers and its own sites to customers. But customer expectations were changing. Retailers increasingly wanted evidence that Pilgrim’s was assessing and managing supply chain risk on their behalf, and legislation was raising the bar further.
For a business making ready meals, that is no small task. A single product can involve 14 or 15 suppliers, and every component counts, from salt, herbs and spices to the core protein.
The challenge was compounded by a recent merger. Pilgrim’s Europe had brought together three companies, each of which had used Sedex differently. Before the team could establish a single, consistent approach, it needed to clean up, consolidate and align a significant amount of supplier data.
The biggest constraint was capacity. Managing onboarding, supplier queries and non-conformance follow-up across thousands of suppliers would have been a full-time job in itself, and with headcount always difficult to secure, the responsible sourcing team needed another way to move forward.
The solution: adding capacity with Sedex Sustainability Coordinators
Pilgrim’s chose to take on Sedex Sustainability Coordinators, dedicated specialists who added capacity alongside the in-house team. At its peak, the business worked with two coordinators. The coordinators’ initial focus was cleaning up and consolidating supplier data following the merger. From there, their remit expanded to include onboarding new suppliers onto Sedex as new ingredients were added and supporting suppliers to close out audit non-conformances, contributing to a 58% close-out rate.
Much of the value comes from hands-on support. Many suppliers, particularly smaller or more remote ones, are less familiar with Sedex, and some simply didn’t know, for example, that they could upload evidence and submit it to close out their non-conformances. Having a coordinator on hand to talk them through it has made a real difference.
Suppliers aren’t always as familiar with Sedex. Having somebody with the time, the focus and the system knowledge to guide them really helps. With the number of suppliers we have, we wouldn’t have the capacity to do that otherwise.
Because the coordinators sit outside permanent headcount, Pilgrim’s has been able to scale support up to reach its current position, then scale back down to match ongoing needs.
The coordinators give us flexibility…We’ve been able to flex up to get to this point and then flex down again. It’s been really helpful. We wouldn’t have done anywhere near as much this year without it.
Building a consistent, data-led programme
With cleaner data and dedicated support in place, Pilgrim’s made Sedex the central source of supplier data for its responsible sourcing programme. The team developed its own country risk rating, set above customer requirements, so that a single approach could satisfy every customer’s expectation.
For ingredients and components sourced from higher-risk countries, the technical team identifies the relevant supplier site on Sedex, links it to the platform where needed, and completes a risk assessment. That evidence is saved to the product specification, giving customers visibility whenever they need it.
Minimum expectations are clear: suppliers complete the Sedex Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), and sites in higher-risk countries should have had a valid audit within the last two years.
Pilgrim’s has also asked suppliers, on a voluntary basis, to complete the Sedex Environmental SAQ, to build a clearer picture of Scope 3 emissions and wider environmental performance. Uptake has been strong, with around 70% completion so far.
We felt it was better to keep it all in one system. Suppliers use Sedex anyway, and when you read through the questions, they’re sensibly written, the explanations are good and they’re easy enough to translate.
The same rigour applies to Pilgrim’s own sites. Led by the Head of HR Compliance, the business carries out an internal pre-audit around six months before each site’s SMETA audit is due, using qualified auditors from within the business, so that any issues can be identified and corrected early.
The impact
Working with Sedex Sustainability Coordinators has helped Pilgrim’s Europe build a more consistent, evidence-based responsible sourcing programme:
- Merged supplier data from three businesses consolidated into one consistent approach.
- A 58% non-conformance close-out rate achieved through coordinator follow-up and supplier support.
- ~70% of suppliers asked have voluntarily completed the Environmental SAQ.
- 16 key raw materials tracked towards Pilgrim’s 2030 responsible sourcing target.
Sedex now provides the validated base data behind Pilgrim’s responsible sourcing reporting. The team exports data from the platform to build dashboards in Excel, tracking progress over time across both its supply chain and its own sites.
Internally, Pilgrim’s reports on the number of suppliers linked, key raw material suppliers, SMETA non-conformances closed out, and SAQ and Environmental SAQ completion rates. That same data underpins its commitment to responsibly source 100% of its 16 key raw materials by 2030, including rice, soya, vegetables and meats such as chicken and pork, along with other key staples.
I don’t think we’d be able to do it without Sedex, really. And it’s a customer requirement, so we may as well make full use of it
What made this work
Pilgrim’s points to three things. First, investing in dedicated capacity through Sustainability Coordinators, which allowed the team to make rapid progress without adding permanent headcount. Second, setting its own risk threshold above customer requirements, so one consistent process serves every customer. Third, keeping supplier data in a single system that suppliers already use, which has helped drive strong voluntary uptake of the Environmental SAQ.
Looking ahead
Looking ahead, Pilgrim’s plans to use SAQ results to identify where suppliers need the most support, and to offer training in those areas. As customer expectations continue to rise and reporting requirements evolve, including CSRD reporting as part of the wider JBS group, Pilgrim’s is well positioned to evidence its due diligence to customers with confidence.
I’d definitely recommend looking at the Sustainability Coordinators to fill your capacity. Even if it’s just for six months to get ahead of things, because customers are going to be asking more and more for evidence and proof. It’s saved us so much time and hassle and helped us get more out of Sedex. The more you put in, the more you get out.
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