Product quality and safety initiatives
Some of the key initiatives undertaken across our divisions during the year are detailed below.
Bunnings
Bunnings sells an extensive range of products that are used in conjunction with safety instructions and personal protective equipment. These include gardening equipment, hand and power tools, and electrical products.
The safety and wellbeing of Bunnings’ team members and customers remain its highest priority. Bunnings aims to ensure every product purchased from Bunnings will be safe, fit for purpose and comply with the relevant Australian, New Zealand and international or voluntary standards.
Bunnings works closely with its suppliers to ensure due diligence for quality and safety performance is embedded. During the financial year, Bunnings monitored this through multiple channels, including third-party testing and independent product reviews.
As a retailer of household and trade chemicals, Bunnings holds the required registrations and licences for the retail storage and handling of chemicals classified as dangerous goods. These requirements are in place at all relevant sites that store and handle these products to ensure compliance with relevant regulations in Australia and New Zealand.
In May 2024, Bunnings conducted an independent product safety labelling assessment to identify continuous improvement opportunities. During the year, Bunnings also commissioned a proactive review across selected product categories, including cleaning, automotive, pool chemicals and BBQ accessories to monitor compliance to trade measurement laws and consumer expectations.
Bunnings maintained its focus on compliance to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) mandatory standards for button batteries and products containing button batteries, resulting in three voluntary product recalls during the financial year. To ensure continued product safety, the Bunnings Button Battery Guide outlines design, testing and labelling requirements for all relevant suppliers of products containing button batteries.
In November 2023, Bunnings committed to removing engineered stone benchtops from sale to customers by the end of 2023, ahead of the introduction of regulation to prohibit the use, supply and manufacture of engineered stone from 1 July 2024. Bunnings applies the definition of ‘Engineered Stone’ as set out in the Model Work Health and Safety regulations, which includes all products with engineered stone requiring any further cutting or drilling (e.g. kitchen benchtops and the top of bathroom vanities).
During the year, Bunnings maintained its ISO9001 quality certification requirements and conducted third-party inspections for high-risk electrical products. This provided improved transparency on quality indicators for electrical products, prior to shipment to Australia and New Zealand. In the coming year, Bunnings will continue its focus on strengthening product sourcing processes to apply additional due diligence requirements for exclusive and directly sourced products. In New Zealand, Bunnings will work to improve customer understanding of building product information requirements through product labelling and in aisle communication.
WIS
The Industrial and Safety division is committed to providing customers with safe products and had no own-brand product recalls in 2024.
The division continues to improve standards and drive risk mitigation protocols within its product quality and safety program. It maintains accredited ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems accreditation in Blackwoods, Bullivants, Coregas and Workwear Group, and ISO/IEC 17025 NATA accreditation for laboratories for Coregas and Bullivants. Coregas also maintains ISO 17034 general requirements for the competence of reference material producers, as well as licences to produce medical gases, with all filling sites rated at the highest level A1.
Blackwoods, NZ Safety Blackwoods and Workwear Group independently certify selected own-brand products against required standards. Most of these own-brand products are within the safety product range, which includes apparel, footwear, hand protection and safety eyewear. Certification from independent, accredited certifying bodies provides customers with assurance of the business units’ compliance with manufacturing and product standards.
Coregas continues its participation in the ANZIGA Product Stewardship working group.
Workwear Group has representation on the following Australian Standards Committees: SF-053 Personal Protective Equipment and Clothing, SF-049 Firefighters Personal Protective Clothing and SF-050 High Visibility Clothing.
Customer engagement within the division remains integral within the B2B and industrial customer market. Workwear Group continues its Trust and Verification Audit Program, which includes unannounced audits across the supply chain. Blackwoods, Bullivants and NZ Safety Blackwoods continue to support customer requests in supplier qualifications, of which having demonstrable quality management systems are integral to continued business.
Health
Wesfarmers Health participates in various product safety-focused activities and is a member of the Wesfarmers Group Product Safety Forum, facilitated by the Corporate Solicitors Office. Recent initiatives within Wesfarmers Health include, but are not limited to:
- Completion of Competition and Consumer Act training, incorporating product safety components, conducted by the Corporate Solicitors Office. Subsequently, the Wesfarmers Health Compliance Management team conducted in-person training sessions for Category Management and Marketing team members, focusing specifically on product safety, recall procedures and compliance with the TGA Advertising Code.
- Development and launch of comprehensive guidelines addressing mandatory product safety, electrical product safety, food standards and trade measurement, such guidelines tailored for Category Management teams.
Revision of product testing protocols and electrical safety policy and procedure documentation. The responsibilities of the Compliance Management team have expanded to include the review of products for compliance with mandatory product safety standards, including labelling requirements.
OneDigital
As an Australian-owned and operated e-commerce marketplace,
Catch aims to provide Australians with access to well-priced, quality products
while ensuring its customers are satisfied.
Catch’s product safety and compliance commitments reflect
Wesfarmers’ product safety and compliance [wesfarmers.com.au] position. As part
of this commitment, Catch collaborates with other Wesfarmers’ divisions in a
quarterly product safety forum and participates within the product safety
community through lead organisations, such as Standards Australia.
Catch is a signatory to the ACCC Product Safety Pledge
[productsafety.gov.au]. This places obligations on Catch to monitor product
safety and compliance for products listed on the Catch platform. Catch employs
highly-experienced product safety and compliance professionals to manage these
compliance procedures. Catch provides an annual status report to the ACCC and
meets twice yearly to discuss emerging issues and process improvements. Catch
also builds compliance relationships with other lead regulators, such as the
Therapeutic Goods Administration.
The Catch Product Integrity and Consumer Safety Team becomes
aware of emerging issues through participation within the product safety
community, such as through sitting on Australian Standards Committees. Relevant
compliance information will be provided to involved parties (buyers, suppliers
and sellers) through a combination of general bulletins, updates to internal
procedures and documents, and through structured training.
GRI 3-3, GRI 416-1, GRI 417-1, GRI 413-2