Gender Pay Gap Report 

This report sets out the gender pay gap statistics for Délifrance (UK) Ltd in relation to the reporting year of 2024-25. 

Introduction

Under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, Délifrance (UK) Ltd is legally required to publish, on an annual basis, specified information relating to our gender pay gap. The data presented relates to the snapshot date of 5^th April 2025.

The following information has been calculated in accordance with the Regulations and is legally compliant

The Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average pay of men and women, expressed as a percentage. The gap is calculated across the entire workforce of an organisation. 

The gender pay gap has many contributing factors which will differ from organisation to organisation, across sectors and across geographical locations. These factors may or may not be unlawful or discriminatory, guided by society or cultural aspects, or as a result of internal organisational practices.

It is crucial to our understanding of gender pay disparity to recognise that the gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay is where there is a discriminatory pay difference between men and women who carry out the same job, jobs rated as equivalent or work of equal value. The existence of a gender pay gap does not automatically give rise to any discrimination or equal pay matters.

The purpose of publishing the gender pay gap is not to confirm compliance with the law; rather it is a way to show the relative equality of jobs being shared amongst men and women in an organisation using pay as a guide to the job’s worth.

Organisational Context

Délifrance is one of the leading bakery players in the UK food industry supplying the major retailers and food service outlets with premium speciality breads and Viennoiserie. Our two manufacturing sites in the UK are in Southall in West London and in Wigston in Leicestershire. In April 2025, we employed 452 people – a slight increase compared with our April 2024 headcount. 73% of our employees are male and 27% are female – so we have seen a 6% increase in the % of men in the business compared to last year. 

This gender imbalance is because the food manufacturing sector has traditionally attracted more men than women. This is because there are general misconceptions about the hours and shift patterns being unsocial and that factory work is seen as being dirty and physically demanding. Instead, jobs in the Retail and Service sector have been seen as more attractive by women because of more social hours and the working environment. We have found it difficult to attract female candidates to apply for vacancies – to the extent that we have had no female applicants for some factory-based positions (for example, in Engineering or Shift Management). We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all staff and job applicants. We aim to create a working environment in which everyone is able to make best use of their skills, free from discrimination or harassment and in which all decisions are based on merit. We do not discriminate against staff on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

Our Commitment to Equality and Diversity

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all staff and job applicants. We aim to create a working environment in which everyone is able to make best use of their skills, free from discrimination or harassment and in which all decisions are based on merit. We do not discriminate against staff on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

In 2025-26, we are developing a new equity-based approach in our Equal Opportunity Policy that will acknowledge that individuals may have different needs and circumstances, requiring tailored resources and opportunities to achieve fair outcomes, rather than simply providing the same resources to everyone (equality). We believe that this approach will enable us to make further progress in addressing the Gender Pay Gap in our business.

We employ people of many different backgrounds and heritages and are proud of our diversity. We promote this throughout the year by celebrating a variety of cultural and religious festivals promoting Diversity and Inclusion. In 2024-5, we introduced a Values-based Training programme which was designed by our Training team and delivered to all colleagues. This was focussed on our 4 key Values of Acting Together, Working for the Long Term, Being Genuine and Being Entrepreneurial. This is the first behaviour-based universal programme we have run and it encourages colleagues to recognise others when we act in line with these Values and to challenge ourselves and others when they do not. We believe that this approach will encourage Men and Women of all backgrounds to stay and develop their careers with us.

We have also developed and trained out a new Sexual Harassment Policy for all colleagues and a new Relationships at Work Policy in 2024 and 2025. In this way, we have set the standard for acceptable behaviour in our business with a view to eliminating any incidents of sexual harassment and established a clear process to follow to report any such incidents. All our managers have been through an ACAS-run Training Programme on Sexual Harassment and have a clear understanding of the importance of their role in creating a safe working environment for all. To measure the effectiveness of these measures, we will be running an anonymous online Employee Survey in 2025 and will be carrying out a Risk Assessment based on its findings.      

Gender Pay Gap

In the information below, the Mean and Median Hourly Pay and Bonus Gaps between Men and Women are expressed as a percentage difference to the Men’s pay and bonus values. This means that a positive value indicates a gap in favour of Men and a negative value in favour of Women. You can see that the statistics on the Median Hourly Pay Gap in the chart below show that women have been earning comparatively more than men for 5 of the past 9 years but that based on the Average Hourly Pay Gap, Men’s pay rates have been consistently higher than Women’s. 

Mean Gender Pay Gap

Based on the mean (average) hourly rate of pay for Male and Female employees in the relevant pay period, our Mean Gender Pay Gap is 10%*. 

This shows that Men earn on average 10% more than Women or £1.98 an hour more. In 2023/4, the gap was 9.6% and so this is broadly the same as the previous year and is 2% better than in 2022-23.

Median Gender Pay Gap

We believe that the Median is probably a more accurate measure of the Gender Pay Gap because it neutralizes the extreme ends of the data. Based on the median (middle) hourly rate of pay for male and female employees in the relevant pay period, our Median Gender Pay Gap is 5%* with men receiving £0.81 an hour more than women using this measure.

Last year, men earned 0.14% more than women when we look at the midpoint for both genders so there is a slight deterioration against that measure. However, 5% compares favourably with a gap of 6.3% between Men and Women in 2022-23 and is 8% better than the National Median Gender Pay Gap measured by the Office for National Statistics in April 2024.

Bonus Proportions

In 2024, we introduced a new Loyalty Bonus Scheme which paid out in February 2025 for all colleagues not covered by the Management Bonus Scheme. The level of payout linked to the EBITDA performance of the Company and individual attendance and disciplinary measures. This meant that we saw more colleagues qualifying for a Bonus than in previous years. The following table shows the proportions of Male and Female employees who were paid a bonus during the relevant period compared to the last 2 years:

Please note that the % refers to the proportion of male employees who received a Bonus and the proportion of female employees who received one and not the relative % of male to female employees. 

As you can see, there has been a 13% increase in the number of men receiving a Bonus compared to last year and a 27% increase in the number of women compared with last year. Looking back to 2022-23, the number of men receiving a Bonus has increased by over 57%. The % of men and women receiving a Bonus this year is now almost identical.

Gender Bonus Gap

Mean Gender Bonus Gap

Based on the Mean (average) Bonus Pay for male and female employees in the relevant pay period, our Mean Gender Bonus Gap is now 20.3%* in favour of men. This is a change from the parity which we achieved last year. This is despite running a Loyalty Bonus Scheme that was based on a fixed amount for all – rather than being linked to a % of salary. The Management Bonus Scheme is based on a % of Salary and is likely to have skewed this result. More Men and Women received a Bonus than in previous years because of the new Scheme.  

Median gender bonus gap

Based on the Median (middle) Bonus Pay for Male and Female employees in the relevant pay period, our Median Gender Bonus Gap in 2023-24 was 128% in favour of Women. This year it was 6.3%* in favour of Men and the actual gap between the 2 Groups was only £67. All in all, the gap between Men and Women had closed significantly compared to last year.

*Rounded to one decimal place

The chart below tracks the 2 measures over the past 8 years.

Quartile Pay Bands

The following chart summarises the proportions of relevant male and female full-time employees in the Lower, Lower-middle, Upper-middle and Upper quartile pay bands looking at this year and the year before:

The number of Women in the Upper Quartile positions has remained the same compared to last year. However, the number in Upper Middle and Lower Middle paid positions have fallen. By contrast, the number of Women in the Lower Quartile paid jobs has increased by 6%. Some of this is explained by the fact that we are employing more Men this year than last. 

 Comment

·    Our Median Gender Pay Gap of 5% compares favourably with the National Gender Pay Gap Median of 13.1% as published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for April 2024.  

·   We believe that by continuing to promote the Equality and Diversity and Inclusion agenda across the UK business, we will continue to reduce the Median Gender Pay Gap and the Median Gender Bonus Gap. 

·     The breakdown at each pay band level broadly reflects the overall Gender Profile in our business of 73% Men and 27% Women. The proportion of Women in each pay band suggests we are getting better at recruiting Women into Operator level positions in the Factory but reflects the difficulty we have been experiencing in attracting Women into junior and middle management roles.

·      We are delighted to see the positive impact of the Loyalty Bonus Scheme on the Gender Bonus Pay Gap and will continue to run this Scheme in 2025-26.

·      We look forward to increasing the number of women in the workforce as a whole and to promoting a culture in which career progression is available for all.

·     We continue to be committed to 40% of the Delifrance UK and I Board Members being female and we have achieved this target for the past 4 years.

·      We are focussed on seeing an improvement in our Gender Pay Gap metrics in the coming years.

Confirmation

I confirm that I have reviewed the data used and the calculation of the Gender Pay gap and Bonus Pay Gap and that to the best of my knowledge and belief the required elements are accurately expressed in accordance with the regulations.

Niall Cogan
General Manager, Délifrance (UK) Ltd