OUR FARMING PARTNERS

Our farming partners are mainly private,
small-scale, traditional family units,
who have been in the business for generations,
and whose main « cash crop » is oriental tobacco.

Of course, traditional does not mean old-fashioned and we spend much time, energy and money on ensuring that our partners are up-to-date on many of the important issues of our day.

One of the advantages of being a group spanning across several countries, is that we are able to standardize our educational material, thus ensuring that our growers implement best practices in terms of agro-chemical usage, environmental protection and labor issues (especially child labor), regardless of their location.

Socotab and
Social Responsibility

• Socotab believes in acting in a socially responsible manner both internally and towards the outside world.
  Socotab has either developed or participates in many different programs, all of which further the goal of being
  a responsible corporate citizen.

• Moreover, as a member of the Universal Leaf Tobacco family we participate in their Sustainability
  & Supply Chain Integrity Policies, which ensures that we conduct,
  « our business according to ethical standards which protect and serve our employees, our communities,
  our environment, our suppliers, our customers and our shareholders. »

• We also contribute to Universal’s worldwide carbon disclosure program, which tracks the company’s carbon footprint.

• We are proud that all of our processing facilities are ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) certified.
  These certifications require constant efforts and attention and underpin our commitment to act in an environmentally
  friendly manner whenever possible.

• As a company, we strive to be considered a good employer not only in terms of level of pay and other benefits,
  but also by providing a safe, clean and welcoming work environment for our employees.

• Our factories are all 9001 (Quality Management System) certified, and we regularly audit our performance
  internally (both by management reviews and internal audits) as well as by various independent third parties,
  mandated by several customers.

• At the same time, we pay a great deal of attention to ensure that our supply chain does not contain cases of abusive employment practices. We participate in various customer-initiated programs such as PMI’s Agricultural Labor Practices program (ALP), as well as the Sustainable Tobacco Program (STP) which is managed and audited by AB Sustain, an independent third-party appointed by many of our major customers (BAT, ITG, JTI, PMI, RJRT, Swedish Match). Finally, we regularly examine farm-level labor issues during management review meetings at both group and local levels.