Transformation
Promoting an inclusive economy fosters a more equitable and sustainable business environment, benefiting all stakeholders, including companies, employees and communities.
Famous Brands strives to be an organisation that truly reflects South Africa’s diverse population. We have established policies and practices to ensure the inclusion, equality, and fair treatment of all employees. The Department of Trade and Industry’s B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice serve as the guiding objectives for our B-BBEE transformation strategy.
Famous Brands has partnered with FOODBEVSETA (Food and Beverages) since 2021 to develop skills in the food and beverage sector. The partnership has enabled greater access to funding for our skills development, allowing us to expand our training and have a positive impact on the community.
Our Group Transformation Manager, supported by our executive leadership team, executes and monitors our B-BBEE transformation strategy across our South African operations.
The Board’s Social and Ethics Committee and Social and Ethics Working Group oversee our transformation initiatives. We follow best practices and align our activities with the 10 Principles of the United Nations Global Compact to ensure we operate according to high standards of responsibility, ethics and accountability.
This year, we achieved a Level 1 B-BBEE rating, a significant achievement and the result of many years of focused attention. This was achieved by:
- Using the YES Programme to improve our B-BBEE Level by two levels.
- Improving our employment equity score by achieving our five-year employment equity targets.
- Executing our disability programme and other initiatives for disability.
- Focusing on enterprise and supplier development by enhancing existing projects and identifying new projects. This includes maintaining our Owner-Driver Programme as our flagship enterprise development programme.
- Replacing non-compliant suppliers where possible.
- Focusing on improving the absorption of learners under skills development (meeting the 15% absorption target).
- Collaborating with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition to unlock B-BBEE opportunities in our sector.
We will strive to maintain a high rating, despite changes to the B-BBEE legislation.
Our transformation journey
B-BBEE scorecard performance
We monitor our scores across the five B-BBEE scorecard elements. We have strategies to enhance and maintain our scores across all these elements, except for ownership, which we cannot influence as a listed entity. Our B-BBEE verification timeline spans from September to August and we received our B-BBEE certificate at the end of August 2024.
This report describes our progress, targets and outlook for our transformation journey. Over the years, we have made significant progress in promoting a transformed South African employee base and Board, while supporting Black-owned suppliers within our value chain.
| Composition of our B-BBEE scorecard | Target points | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership | 27.00 | 9.48 | 8.41 |
| Management control | 19.00 | 17.69 | 16.89 |
| – Board representation | 6.00 | 6.00 | 5.83 |
| – Employment equity | 13.00 | 11.69 | 11.06 |
| Skills development | 20.00 | 22.54 | 20.82 |
| Enterprise and supplier development | 40.00 | 38.98 | 39.24 |
| – Procurement | 25.00 | 21.98 | 23.24 |
| – Supplier development | 10.00 | 10.00 | 10.00 |
| – Enterprise development | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.0 |
| Socio-economic development | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.0 |
| Total | 110 | 93.69 | 90.37 |
| Level 1 | Level 2* |
* In 2024, we qualified as a Level 3 B-BBEE Contributor and got discounted to Level 4 as we did not qualify to move to two levels as we did not meet the required sub-minimum target for ownership. Our participation in the YES Programme allowed us to move from Level 4 to Level 2.
Ownership
The ownership element measures the effective ownership of enterprises by Black people, including how they are entitled to the voting rights and economic interest associated with the equity holding. Voting rights afford the rights to influence the strategic and operational policies of an enterprise, while economic interests result in wealth creation for Black people.
Based on an analysis of mandated investments, Black ownership increased slightly to 12.08% (2024: 10.02%). Famous Brands' shares are publicly traded on the JSE, and many of our shareholders are ordinary South Africans who own shares through their pension funds and other investments.
Management control
Management control is exercised through the Company's governing bodies, including the Board and executive management. At the time of verification, in July 2024, the Board comprised 66.67% Black non-executive directors, with Black women making up 33.33%.
Employment equity
The employment equity element tracks the Group's plans to increase the representation of Black people in the workplace and management positions. Of our South African employee base, 91.20% of our employees are Black (2024: 91.3%).
| Male | Female | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupational levels | African | Coloured | Indian | White | African | Coloured | Indian | White | Total |
| Executive management | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | – | – | – | 2 |
| Other executive management/Senior management | 8 | 3 | 6 | 23 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 62 |
| Middle management | 33 | 4 | 11 | 38 | 35 | 4 | 9 | 36 | 170 |
| Junior management | 149 | 30 | 14 | 27 | 115 | 17 | 15 | 34 | 401 |
| Semi-skilled | 750 | 80 | 6 | 13 | 379 | 26 | 3 | 19 | 1 276 |
| Unskilled | 259 | 36 | 0 | 7 | 85 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 431 |
| Total | 1 202 | 153 | 37 | 111 | 620 | 94 | 30 | 102 | 2 342 |
| People with disabilities | 17 | 14 | 48 | 6 | 85 | ||||
Skills development
The skills development element measures the investment that Famous Brands makes in training and developing its Black employee base to improve their skills and access career progression opportunities. In 2025, our score for skills development improved to 22.54 (2024: 20.82).
In 2025, we allocated 94.79% of our total skills development budget to developing Black employees across all levels. Of this, 5.50% was spent at senior and executive management levels. The HR team plays a critical role in developing employees and supporting the Group in achieving its objectives. Training initiatives include the programmes described here, learnerships and internships.
Supporting people with disabilities
In 2024, we reviewed and modified our learnership programme for people with disabilities to manage costs, reduce the dropout rate and improve the absorption of learners into the workplace. The programme is now run in-house, and we use specialist recruitment agencies to select interns with disabilities. We also have relationships with higher education institutions, serving as a potential referral channel for interns.
In 2025, we hired 40 interns with disabilities. Finding the right interns increases our overall base of employees with disabilities and lowers the number of learnerships for people with disabilities required each year. In 2025, 4.41% of our South African employee base are people with disabilities (2024: 4.63%).
THE YES PROGRAMME – A CORE COMPONENT OF OUR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT APPROACH
We became a contributor to the YES Programme in February 2022 and launched the Famous Brands Academy.
The YES Programme is a skills development programme that aims to provide career opportunities for unemployed youth. Our partnership with YES allows young South Africans to gain work experience while also developing a talent pipeline of trained baristas for our restaurants.
The fourth YES Programme launch took place in October 2024 with an intake of 300 learners. We provided a workplace experience to 300 young Black South Africans, up from 195 in 2024. Of this, 173 learners were placed at 151 franchised restaurants nationwide. In 2024, the YES Programme enabled us to achieve two B-BBEE levels of enhanced status recognition. This is thanks to the level of job creation achieved against the prescribed targets and the high absorption rate (87.86%) of youth into full-time employment.
YES Programme fourth year: Our impact in numbers
Enterprise and supplier development projects
Socio-economic development
Socio-economic development refers to financial and non-financial contributions to individuals or communities where at least 75% of the beneficiaries are classified as Black. Our socio-economic development initiatives help alleviate poverty and hunger while supporting local investment in our communities. In 2025, Famous Brands spent R19.3 million on its South African CSI activities (2024: R17.2 million).
Focus for 2026
We are committed to maintaining a high B-BBEE contributor status (at least a Level 2 B-BBEE status) through continually monitoring and enhancing our transformation strategy. Our focus areas for 2026 are as follows:
- Responding to changes in B-BBEE legislation for Employment Equity, which became effective 1 January 2025.
- Tracking our performance against our five-year Employment Equity plan.
- Focusing on internal and external learnerships across the Group.
- Encourage non-compliant suppliers to comply with B-BBEE regulations.
- Continue to develop a pipeline of new enterprise and supplier development projects.
- Maintain a high absorption level for the YES Programme.