People

The safety of its employees is a priority for Saint Louis Sucre, which has been implementing awareness-raising and prevention actions on this subject for many years. The objective of Saint Louis Sucre and the Südzucker group is “zero accident”. Each establishment carries out actions in the field to get closer to this objective: risk analyses, prevention plans, communication, training and audits.

An executive safety committee meets every quarter to give impetus to the safety policy and to examine its results. In the workplace, visuals inform staff of the presence of residual risks at the places of use, and instructions for safe work at workstations specify in particular the collective and individual protection to be used. Before any non-recurring activity that may present one or more particular risks not covered by a safe work instruction, an appropriate and formalised risk analysis is carried out. In addition to this system, safety audits are carried out regularly at all sites, including the observation of behaviour at the workstation.

Every year, training sessions on safety and the management system in place are held for new arrivals and for existing staff in the form of refresher courses or reminders.

This commitment is bearing fruit, as the accident frequency rate at Saint Louis Sucre is regularly one of the lowest in the sugar industry and in the Südzucker group.

Frequency rate 2020 : 10,54

(Number of lost time accidents per million working hours)

Global frequency rate 2020 : 19,17

(Total number of accidents per million working hours)

Saint Louis Sucre attaches great importance to the mastery and development of its employees’ know-how. Training represents nearly 3% of the total payroll. Multi-year programmes respond to technical and technological advances and encourage individual career development.  They mainly focus on safety, management and technology, with specific courses for sugar mill/refinery and packaging positions.

Saint Louis Sucre is also attentive to the development of its employees. It relies on annual development interviews, and on a forward-looking management of jobs and skills.

Lastly, special attention is paid to welcoming new managers. Saint Louis Sucre’s and the Südzucker Group’s integration procedures give them the keys to understanding their work environment.

For the past ten years, Saint Louis Sucre has been concluding agreements with its social partners on professional gender equality. In 2009, Saint Louis Sucre was the first sugar company to sign such an agreement. Since 2017, the agreements have also included quality of life at work. The agreement is closely monitored and an annual report is examined by the joint committee. The percentage of women in the workforce at Saint Louis Sucre continues to rise, from 17.8% in 2008 to 20.8% in 2019. For Saint Louis Sucre, it is a question of measuring, understanding and acting: measuring by working to identify gaps, understanding where any gaps that are identified come from and acting to remedy them.

In this spirit, Saint Louis Sucre scored 88 points out of 100 in the gender equality index set up by the Ministry of Labour. Saint Louis Sucre will do its utmost to improve this result.

As a committed player in the food industry, Saint Louis Sucre regularly supports associations providing food aid to the most disadvantaged, such as the Restos du Coeur. At the level of the Südzucker group, donations and sponsorship expenses amount to approximately 500,000 euros each year.