Our transformation journey

Over the past six years, Famous Brands has been committed to creating an inclusive organisation that supports South Africa’s transformation trajectory. We have made significant progress since 2018. We achieved and maintained our Level 2 B-BBEE status since 2023.

Famous Brands aims to be an organisation that truly reflects South Africa’s diverse population. We value inclusion, equality, and the fair treatment of all employees. Our business transformation strategy is guided by the Department of Trade and Industry’s B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice objectives.

In 2021, Famous Brands began a partnership with FOODBEVSETA (Food and Beverages), which promotes, facilitates and incentivises skills development in the food and beverage sector. The partnership has enabled us to access more funding for our skills development initiatives.

Our Group Transformation Manager, supported by our executive leadership team, is responsible for executing and monitoring our B-BBEE transformation strategy across our South African operations. Transformation is overseen by the Social and Ethics Working Group and the Board’s Social and Ethics Committee. We follow best practices and align our activities with the 10 Principles of the United Nations Global Compact. We operate according to high standards of responsibility, ethics and acability.

Our B-BBEE scorecard

We monitor our scores across the five elements of the B-BBEE scorecard, as set out below. We have strategies to improve our scores across all of these elements except for ownership which we are unable to influence as a listed entity. Our B-BBEE verification timeline runs from September to August, and we were issued our B-BBEE certificate at the end of August 2023.

This report describes our progress, targets and outlook regarding our transformation journey. Over the years, we have made significant progress in fostering diversity at the Board level, throughout our workforce and within our value chain. In 2023, we achieved a Level 2 B-BBEE rating for the first time. The challenge ahead is maintaining this rating, despite potential changes to B-BBEE legislation.

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 determine strategic and operational policies of an enterprise, while economic interests result in the accumulation of wealth by Black people.

Based on an analysis of mandated investments, Black ownership decreased to 10.02% in 2024 (2023: 12.27%). 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 2023, the Board comprised 66.67% Black non‑executive directors, with Black women making up 33.33%.

Read more about our Board and Exco composition

Employment equity

The employment equity element tracks the Group’s plans to increase the representation of Black people in the workplace and management positions.

Skills development

The skills development element measures the investment that Famous Brands makes in the training and development of its Black workforce to improve their skills and competencies. In 2024, our score for skills development improved marginally to 20.82 (2023: 20.00).

Key projects included our partnership with the YES Programme to provide a workplace experience to 195 young Black South Africans. We allocated approximately 87% of our total skills development budget to developing Black employees across all levels. Of this, 12.3% was spent at senior and executive management levels.

The HR teams play an important role in developing employees and supporting the Group in achieving its objectives. Training initiatives include the programmes detailed here and learnerships and internships.

Supporting people with disabilities

After five years, Famous Brands concluded its learnership programme for people with disabilities. These learnerships sponsored qualifications in professional cookery and call centre operations. We experienced several challenges with these learnerships, including escalating costs to run the programme, high drop-off rates for the learnership and minimal absorption of learners into our business.

Despite the challenges, we are determined to continue gradually recruiting, training and retaining people with disabilities. Finding the right interns increases our overall base of employees with disabilities and lowers the number of learnerships required each year. Our employees with disabilities participate in ongoing training, which is offered to all employees.

We revised the learnership programme by bringing it in-house and working with recruitment agencies that specialise in these areas to select interns. We begun building relationships with higher education institutions as a potential referral channel for interns. Since then, we have hired 15 interns.

We invested R4.8 million and developed training for employees on how to interact with people with disabilities and provide support for both the interns and hosting departments.

As part of our efforts to build inclusivity, we also launched Sign Language as an official language across the business. We have created education on the use of learning Sign Language and how to interpret it.

One of the key challenges is creating an environment that encourages people to disclose their disabilities. We collaborated with HR to implement ways to support employees who want to disclose their disabilities. This will also help our recruitment process and assist us in identifying suitable candidates.

Case study: Another successful year with the YES programme

In February 2022, Famous Brands launched the Famous Brands Academy in partnership with the YES Programme.

In 2024, YES 3.0 offered 195 unemployed youths a 12-month work experience. Of this, 84 youths underwent a coffee training course on what it takes to be a top barista, and 28 youths were placed as interns within the Group. We had 80 youths placed as supervisors, coffee technicians and call centre agents to serve our franchise network. The aspiring youth were trained in all aspects of working in a restaurant through the Training Institute. They also completed the YES work readiness training programme with 25 modules on life skills, such as money management and digital literacy.

Post completing training, they were placed in franchise partner restaurants to gain valuable work experience for 12 months. At year-end for YES 2.0, 154 youths graduated from the Famous Brands Academy from an intake of 165 youths. We had an overall absorption rate of 80.5%, where 124 YES Programme graduates have been employed at restaurants or within the Group.

YES is a South African non-profit initiative that involves collaboration between business, government and labour to address South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis. The YES initiative allows for up to two B-BBEE levels of enhanced B-BBEE status recognition. This depends on the level of job creation against the prescribed targets and the subsequent absorption of the youths.

Our impact in numbers

77.6% female youths placed. This is above the YES average of 58%.

88% of youths come from grant recipient households.

76% of youths have dependants.

+R11.5 million into the community through youth wallets. This is a significant contribution from a single entity.

Enterprise and supplier development

The enterprise and supplier development element comprises:

• Preferential procurement: the extent to which Famous Brands procures goods and services from suppliers with strong B-BBEE credentials.
• Enterprise and supplier development: the financial and non-financial support to develop new or existing small and micro Black-owned enterprises.

This element aims to improve market access for Black-owned businesses by incentivising corporates to support and purchase from these businesses.

In 2024, our score for preferential procurement increased to 23.24 out of a maximum of 25 (2023: 20.76). This reflects our increased focus on buying from Black, Black women-owned and qualifying small and micro-enterprises. We aim to improve the diversity and transformation of our supplier database. We focus on understanding the contributor level of each supplier.

Suppliers between non-compliant and a level 5 contributor status are assisted with a transformation plan or replaced with a qualifying supplier. Each month we track B-BBEE certificates and monitor our supply chain B-BBEE initiatives.

We invest in projects that further diversify our supplier base and improve the lives of our Black suppliers and their communities. Some key initiatives are detailed below.

Owner-Driver Programme

The Group’s Owner-Driver Programme was established in 2010 to assist Black drivers in starting their businesses. The project contributes points to our B-BBEE scorecard while providing efficiencies and improved consumer service levels in our distribution network.

We have 34 owner-drivers in the programme, which has created over 78 direct jobs. Famous Brands injected R22.5 million of enterprise and supplier development to these drivers.

In 2024, owner-driver operated businesses delivered 12.3 million cases to our restaurant network.

Berlin Beef

We supported the Berlin Beef project in the Eastern Cape for the past six years. The project seeks to improve sustainable cattle production in previously disadvantaged communities while providing the Group with access to high-quality and locally produced beef. As the beef is from a B-BBEE-compliant supplier, Famous Brands receives enterprise and supplier development points from this initiative.

Over 90% of slaughtered stock comes from the commercial sector, although smallholder farmers farm 40% of cattle. The main limitations of smallholder livestock production are poor genetic makeup and natural resource management. These limitations affect the quality and consistency of production and reduce the marketability of livestock. This project aims to improve the quality of the existing cattle by introducing suitable and adaptable genetic material that the formal market will accept. The project also trains farmers on natural resource management to enhance their livestock production.

The project works with 150 Black smallholder farmers and 280 communal farmers based in 120 villages in the Eastern Cape. In 2024, the project allocated 40 breeding bulls and 105 breeding heifers to these emerging farmers. As each village has an average of 40 households, this investment will benefit approximately 368 families in the participating villages. Our contribution reduced from R5 million the previous year to R1.25 million. Our aim is to continue growth through collaboration, quality supply of beef and market expansion. By working on such projects, we are ensuring a sustainable community and business.

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 alleviate poverty and hunger and support local investment in our communities. In 2024, Famous Brands spent more than R17.2 million on its CSI activities in South Africa.

Read more in our corporate social investment report.

Looking forward

We are committed to identifying additional strategies for all B-BBEE elements to transform our business further and contribute to a better South Africa. We are monitoring changes to B-BBEE legislation, including the Employment Equity Amendment Bill that came into effect on 1 September 2023.

Our focus areas for 2025 are as follows:

• Maintain Level 2 B-BBEE status. Improve employment equity scores, including through the absorption of interns.
• Encourage non-compliant suppliers to comply with B-BBEE regulations.
• Strive to maintain our enterprise and supplier development scores.