Modern Slavery Statement

Bollin Group Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement Financial Year ending 2022.

1000 Mile is part of the Bollin Group

The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the ‘Act’) requires business to state the actions they have taken during the financial year to ensure modern slavery is not taking place in the business or supply chains.

Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. Bollin Group Limited has a zero-tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in all business dealings and to put effective systems, checks and controls to safeguard against any form of modern slavery taking place within the business or our supply chain.

Values and Focus

Our Mission is to manage an ethical, environmental and profitable business. Integrity is important to us, and all of our companies and brands consider this as our most important value.

Business and Supply Chain

Bollin Group Limited is a successful independent family owned business. The business is the owner of a portfolio of carefully assembled brands in the Outdoor Sector and multi-channel distributor of Group owned brands and other specialist distribution of other famous brands, in Outdoor, Sports, Homeware, DIY/Garden and Watches supply.

The Group is an international business with its head office in Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK. It has brand and distribution operations in the UK, Germany and Canada and owns sock manufacturing facilities in the UK and South Africa.

We design products for our owned brands, and we have strategic manufacturing partners in China, Vietnam, Myanmar and Hungary. We nominate and manage our raw material suppliers in China, Taiwan and Europe.

Our multi- channel distribution business is around high quality, reputable products and brands, and based on long standing and successful relationships.

Policy and Risk Management

We fully recognise and embrace our obligations and have a zero-tolerance approach to slavery and human trafficking.
Within the global supply chain, we have an alliance with Fairwear Foundation (FWF) for our major brands. This provides a Code of Labour Practices made up from eight labour standards:

  1. Employment is freely chosen
  2. There is no discrimination in employment
  3. No exploitation of child labour
  4. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining
  5. Payment of a living wage
  6. Reasonable hours of work
  7. Safe and healthy working conditions
  8. Legally binding employment relationship

Over 90% of our supply chain is audited by FWF within a 3 year period. All external monitoring and corrective action plans are managed by our internal compliance monitoring team.

Our internal compliance monitoring team are responsible for communication and awareness training for staff associated with supply chain management. The Group’s major brands are annually monitored through a brand performance check carried out by the Fairwear Foundation. The results are published annually on the Fairwear Foundation website www.fairwear.org

Within our Operations we periodically use temporary labour, in particular in our warehousing activities. We only use third party agency providers who fulfil all UK legal responsibilities.

We have established internal policies and protocols to fulfil our obligations with employed staff covering:

  1. Equal Opportunities
  2. Recruitment & Selection
  3. Diversity
  4. Bullying & Harassment
  5. Whistleblowing
  6. Family Friendly Policies

Future Plans

  1. Maintain our alliance and auditing schedule with FWF
  2. Review and move towards consolidation of supply chain
  3. Introduce formal pre – business audit of supply chain compliance with any new distributors
  4. Formalise the annual review of any 3rd party agency providers in UK Operations

This statement is made pursuant to s54[1] of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the year ending 31st January 2025. This statement was approved by the Board of Bollin Group Limited