Sheng Siong : FY 2021 Sustainability Report

Contents

01	02	04
About This	Sheng Siong	Joint Message from
Report	Group Ltd	the Chairman and
		the CEO

07	11	14
Special Report	Leadership	Stakeholder
on Tackling	Commitments to	Engagement and
COVID-19	Sustainability	Materiality

24	26	38
Sheng Siong and	Our Management	Business
the Sustainable	Approach: Evaluation,	Excellence
Development Goals	Progress and Targets

48	54	66
Care for Our	Care for Our	Care for the
Customers	Employees	Community
76	88
Care for the	GRI Content
Environment	Index

0 1		S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y R E P O R T 2 0 2 1

About

This Report

Sheng Siong publishes its sustainability report annually. This is Sheng Siong's fifth sustainability report, which covers the period 1 January to 31 December 2021, or the same reporting period as our financial report. The previous annual sustainability report was published in May 2021. This sustainability report covers all of the Group's operations in Singapore. Sheng Siong does not have any major operations of significance overseas. Our operation in China has been excluded from the scope of this report as it contributes less than 2% to our revenue. Sheng Siong (M) Sdn. Bhd, a company we registered in Malaysia, has been similarly excluded from this report as it is currently dormant.

This report has been prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards: Core Option. We selected the GRI Standards to guide our reporting as it is currently the most widely used sustainability reporting standards. We sought to apply the GRI reporting principles for defining report content and report quality. The GRI Content Index can be found in our online report on pages 88-95, which can be accessed from our corporate website. This report also adheres to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) Listing Rule 711A on preparing an annual sustainability report and describes our sustainability practices with reference to the primary components set out in Listing Rule 711B. We have not sought external assurance for this report. For any questions or comments, please address them to [e-mail].

SHENG SIONG GROUP LTD. Headquarters

6 Mandai Link Singapore 728652 Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] corporate.shengsiong.com.sg

This report is published on 27 May 2022.

0 2		S H E N G S I O N G G R O U P L T D

Sheng Siong Group Ltd

昇菘集团

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O U R

V I S I O N

O U R

M I S S I O N

O U R

B E L I E F S

O U R

VA L U E S

To be the preferred retailer in the market, starting from Singapore and expanding further ashore.

从新加坡做起，成为市场首选的零售商， 让昇菘迈向国际，生生不息。

To create value in a sustainable manner for our customers in a convenient and comfortable shopping environment with good service and quality products at reasonable prices.

以公道的价格、优质的产品及卓越的服务，可持续性 地创造价值，为顾客提供便捷又舒适的购物环境。

With morality as our bedrock, we continue our legacy by setting self-expectations to walk the talk and be good examples for others. With this, we will conquer all odds and ensure the continuity of Sheng Siong.

以道德为基础（自我要求，言行一致）， 以榜样为传承（走出死亡，永续昇菘）。

Be reasonable, harmonious, responsible and dedicated. Be earnest and efficient at work, with no empty promises and excuses.

Our

Tagline Always there to serve…

用心服务

Always there to listen…

用心聆听

Always from the heart…

由心出发

Always happy to go above and beyond

用心.微笑.

让我们走得更远

合理、和谐、尽责、敬业。

认真、 快、 坚守承诺、 决不找借口。

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Joint Message from

The Chairman and The CEO

Lim Hock Eng PBM

Executive Chairman

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Lim Hock Chee BBM

Chief Executive Officer

Dear Stakeholders,

As we pen this letter, economies around the world - including that of Singapore - are beginning to emerge from the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, new challenges present themselves in the form of political tensions and economic divisions, which have downstream effects on global supply chains. In these times of uncertainty, decisive leadership and effective crisis management are crucial for companies to successfully navigate through disruptions and ensure business continuity.

In the year under review, these key capabilities have been put to the test time and again. We are heartened that we were able to power through various challenges to emerge stronger, thanks to our tenacity as a team and our close partnerships with stakeholders. For example, when major food distribution centres were temporarily closed due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, we were able to swiftly deploy our contingency measures, ensuring minimal disruptions to our in-store supplies. Details on our pandemic response can be found in the "Special Report on Tackling COVID-19" section of our report.

As an essential service provider, one of our priorities is to ensure we continue to provide for our communities during the pandemic and be a source of stability amidst lives and

livelihoods already disrupted. At the same time, we are proud to have made meaningful progress against our five sustainability pillars despite the challenging operational circumstances we faced in 2021.

Highlights in 2021

Business Excellence

E-commerce sales surged in 2021 as consumers moved online in response to COVID-19 movement restrictions, resulting in a double-digit increase in our e-commerce sales. We streamlined our customers' user experience by enhancing the interface of our online shopping platform and optimising its underlying operating system. The platform, once known as "allforyou. sg", has since been rebranded as "Sheng Siong Online" to harmonise with our core branding strategy.

We have also increased our delivery capacity and outfitted our distribution centre with ambient and cold-chain Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), boosting our storage and warehousing capacity by approximately 18%. We also continued to break new ground with our Pick-to-Light and Put-to-Light distribution systems in 2021, helping us to reap distributional efficiencies amidst periods of heightened consumer demand.

Care for Our Customers

We continued to care for our customers' well-being by developing more products that meet the Healthier Choice Symbol (HCS) criteria. From a humble line-up of just 25 housebrand products in 2017, we have since quadrupled the number of housebrand products carrying the HCS. As of 2021, customers may also choose from the 2,600 HCS labelled products we carry in our stores.

Our efforts to care for and engage with our customers have enabled us to maintain our Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) score above that of the Supermarket Sub- Sector for five consecutive years. Accordingly, our market share of Singapore's grocery shopping industry has grown year-on-year despite keen competition.

Care for Our Employees

In 2021, our staff purchase scheme paid out more than $526,000 in benefits. Beyond helping our employees purchase essential groceries, we actively invest in their development by refining our training approach on our e-learning platform.

In 2021, we also completed the installation of our training supermarket to help new employees learn the ropes in a more conducive environment. However, the prevailing COVID-19 movement restrictions meant that we were unable to use its facilities for training purposes.

Care for the Community

While the number of community development activities we could organise was limited by the prevailing COVID-19 movement restrictions, we continued to invest our resources in legacy projects and partnerships, including Project 100=50 and the Red Cross' Project R.I.C.E.+.

We also extended our special 3% senior citizen and Merdeka Generation discount programmes for another year and made exceptions for family members to benefit from the discount programmes when purchasing groceries on their behalf.

Finally, we continued to show our appreciation for our frontline heroes by offering a 3% special discount for all public transport workers between 1 November and 31 December 2021.

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Joint Message from

The Chairman and The CEO

Care for the Environment

Looking ahead

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Special Report on

Tackling COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic persisted through 2021 with the emergence of Delta and the highly transmissible Omicron

We continued to affirm our commitment towards reducing food wastage and the use of single-use plastics by supporting NEA's third "Say YES to Waste Less" campaign. To raise awareness of these issues among consumers, we spread the word on social media and put up informative collaterals such as posters and decals across our stores.

We also joined the "NEA Citizen's Workgroup on Excessive Consumption of Disposables" that was convened between September 2020 and February 2021. As a workgroup panellist, we shared our industry insights with fellow participants and discussed recommendations that inclusively address the issue of excessive plastic consumption.

In 2021, we walked the talk on our own food wastage by founding a new partnership to process unsold fruits into other food products. Through this initiative, we managed to divert close to 3.6 tonnes of fruits away from disposal.

The challenges of the past year have provided invaluable experience in dealing with disruptions and strengthened our resolve as a company to be more resilient and sustainable. While the pandemic has delayed the progress of some of our sustainability initiatives, we hope to regain momentum and emerge from the tumult of the past two years as a more robust organisation. We also cannot rest on our laurels as global challenges such as climate change continue to pose a threat to economies and livelihoods.

To that end, we reviewed our existing targets and introduced new ones to drive our sustainability performance. We will also work towards complying with the new sustainability reporting requirements set by the Singapore Exchange.

On behalf of the Board, we would like to thank all our stakeholders for their unwavering support as we chart new directions in our sustainability journey. We wish you and your family good health in the year ahead.

variants.

We were faced with new challenges, but were able to leverage our strengths and competencies to overcome them.

Maintaining supplies and meeting customer demands

During the year under review, we saw the temporary closure of Jurong Fishery Port (JFP), a major distribution centre for fresh seafood in Singapore, and also the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre (PPWC), a major distribution centre for fresh fruits and vegetables, due to the emergence of COVID-19 clusters. This resulted in long lines forming at wet markets as consumers were concerned over an impending shortage for fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, highlighting the importance of having a diversified food supply and maintaining strong supplier relationships. Over the years, Sheng Siong has placed a great focus on diversifying our food supplies, ensuring that we faced minimal disruptions to our supplies. These efforts to enhance the reliability of our supply chains have also gone hand in hand with managing our input costs, helping us consistently create

Lim Hock Eng PBM	Lim Hock Chee BBM
Executive Chairman	Chief Executive Officer

value for our customers.

Our team of seafood specialists operating out of JFP was also impacted by the closure of JFP. Drawing on our strengths, we were able to immediately make alternative operational arrangements and activate alternative supply sources to ensure that supplies to our stores remained largely undisrupted.