Responsible Sourcing

From agave to sugarcane, wheat, botanicals, and beyond, the quality of our raw materials is what makes the products in the Bacardi portfolio so special. That is why Bacardi is committed to protecting the long-term sustainability of our raw materials and sourcing all materials responsibly.

We work with suppliers who commit to the highest standards for labor and human rights, health and safety, environmental protection, and business integrity. Our Responsible Sourcing Standards apply to all suppliers providing goods and/or services to Bacardi.

Our Good Spirited Global Goal of sourcing our materials responsibly encompasses all our key raw materials, paper, and board.

To drive progress on these goals, we make responsible sourcing an integrated part of our procurement strategy which is to secure supply sustainably, to remove price volatility, and to drive value beyond price. The way that Bacardi achieves this strategy is by building long-term partnerships with our suppliers. When we develop long-term partnerships, we enable investments in sustainability, we honor and support brand heritage, and we build quality relationships that lead to quality products. We continuously review our supplier base, and in FY19 consolidated the number of suppliers to 2000 (from 3000) so that we could build the strongest possible relationships with our suppliers to ensure high sustainability and quality standards.

Sourcing responsibly begins with choosing the right suppliers. To become a Bacardi supplier, a vendor is required to go through the Vendor Qualification Process. Vendors must comply with the standards set out in these documents and ensure their suppliers and subcontractors do likewise. We require the agreement to and return of a satisfactorily completed and executed copy of these documents for each manufacturing facility used, including principal subcontractors (i.e. where main manufacturing is outsourced). If a vendor does not qualify, Bacardi will not work with them. 

If a vendor is selected, then they go through an onboarding process that includes required training in the Good Spirited Global Goals and accompanying programs. To ensure continuous compliance to our standards and progress on goals, we ask our suppliers to join Sedex. Sedex is one of the largest collaborative platforms in the world for buyers, suppliers, and auditors to store, share and report on information quickly and easily. Through Sedex, suppliers can share information with us, and any other customers, on their relevant standards; and to take a similar approach with their suppliers, as we recognize there are risks further along our supply chain.

We request our suppliers to perform a Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) for each of their facilities that deliver products to our manufacturing sites. SMETA is one of the most widely used ethical audit formats in the world and is compilation of good practice in ethical audit technique. SMETA methodology uses the Ethical Trading Initiative code and local law as the measurement tool. It includes four modules that are assessed: health and safety, labor standards, environment, and business ethics.