Case Study: Aryzta

Aryzta is an international bakery company specialising in the convenience bakery sector with operations in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Alison Wright, Head of Food Safety and Quality (Asia and Pacific), joined us to discuss the importance of culture at Aryzta.

Our critical ingredients remain our people – this is the philosophy of our business. We have many national cultures working across our 27 bakeries but we have a set of core business values that connect us.

One of the most important activities is acknowledging and recognising that people are different and cherishing differences of cultures and heritages, providing a safe, supportive and actively inclusive environment. We drive employee engagement by ensuring that every individual has personal objectives of how they will achieve these core values over the year. 

We also ensure that our expectations regarding desired and undesired behaviours are communicated in a clear and concise way to all staff. Communication, however, is a two-way street; all employees are included within engagement surveys which allows us to monitor how people are feeling, levels of engagement and inclusivity and identify any opportunities for improvement. We aim to listen to what people are and are not saying to achieve this.

In order to truly practice inclusivity, we ensure that we recognise different holidays and allow people the opportunity to shared their experience and thoughts where they are comfortable. Reward and recognition and important parts of culture, however we are mindful that we ensure that rewards are relevant and appropriate for different nationalities  in order to promote the inclusivity element. 

Reference: Campden BRI (2022), Culture Excellence 8th Annual Seminar