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Our business strategy focuses on three pillars:
−Removed: maximizing and optimizing our Tobacco Operations segment, growing our Ingredients Operations segment, and strengthening our organization.
+Added: maximizing and optimizing our Tobacco Operations segment, growing our Ingredients Operations segment, and strengthening our Company for the future.
In our Tobacco Operations segment, we continue to look for opportunities to increase our sales volumes and market share, expand services across our customers’ supply chains, participate in the evolution of next generation products, and improve operating efficiency.
−Removed: In our Ingredients Operations segment, we seek opportunities to grow Universal Ingredients, our plant-based ingredients platform, both organically and through disciplined acquisitions to provide customers with a solutions-based portfolio of value-added product offerings.
−Removed: Under our corporate pillar, we continue to pursue strategies and initiatives to strengthen and support our organization for the future.
−Removed: These strategies and initiatives are expected to focus on efficient financial management, effective human capital management, optimal utilization of technology and operational synergies between our business segments.
+Added: In our Ingredients Operations segment, we seek opportunities to grow both organically and through disciplined acquisitions to provide customers with a solutions-based portfolio of value-added product offerings.
+Added: Under our corporate pillar, we pursue strategies and initiatives intended to strengthen and support our Company for the future.
+Added: These strategies and initiatives are expected to focus on efficient financial management, effective human capital management, optimal utilization of technology, including artificial intelligence ( “ AI”), and operational synergies between our business segments.
Our goal is to drive excellence across the Company and position Universal for long-term success and value creation.
−Removed: We generated approximately $2,947.3 million in consolidated revenues and earned $232.8 million in total operating income and $252.5 million in total segment operating income in fiscal year 2025.
+Added: We generated approximately $2.9 billion in consolidated revenues and earned $168.5 million in total operating income and $214.8 million in total segment operating income in fiscal year 2026.
We are a holding company that operates through numerous directly and indirectly owned subsidiaries.
−Removed: Our primary subsidiaries are Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, Incorporated (“Universal Leaf”), which is associated with our Tobacco Operations segment, and Universal Global Ventures, Incorporated, which is associated with our Ingredients Operations segment.
+Added: Our primary subsidiaries are Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, Incorporated, which is associated with our Tobacco Operations segment, and Universal Ingredients, Inc.
+Added: ( “ Universal Ingredients”)(formerly Universal Global Ventures, Incorporated), which is associated with our Ingredients Operations segment.
Additional Information
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In addition to our leaf tobacco business, we are involved in other tobacco-related opportunities, including liquid nicotine for manufacturers of next generation tobacco products and recycled waste materials from tobacco production.
−Removed: We contract directly with farmers and farmer organizations in many of the countries in which we operate.
+Added: We contract directly with farmers and farmer organizations in most of the countries in which we operate.
Partnering with Universal offers most growers the added benefit of access to crop input packages (including advances of seeds or seedlings and fertilizer) that may not otherwise be readily available.
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We conduct our tobacco business in varying degrees in a number of countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, the Netherlands, Paraguay, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, Poland, the Republic of South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Zimbabwe.
−Removed: In addition, our oriental tobacco joint venture, Socotab, L.L.C.
−Removed: (“Socotab”), has operations in Bulgaria, Greece, the Republic of North Macedonia, and Türkiye.
+Added: In addition, our oriental tobacco joint venture, Socotab, L.L.C., has operations in Bulgaria, Greece, the Republic of North Macedonia, and Türkiye.
We also operate in major dark tobacco producing countries, including the United States, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Indonesia, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Brazil.
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• Strategic market position.
−Removed: By working closely with both our customers and our suppliers throughout the year, we seek to ensure the consistent delivery of a product that meets our customers' needs and cultivate a strong, sustainable supplier base.
+Added: By working closely with both our customers and our suppliers throughout the year, we seek to ensure the consistent delivery of a product that meets our customers' needs and to cultivate a strong, sustainable supplier base.
We also aim to maximize supply chain efficiencies by balancing product purchases against indicated customer demand and maintaining global procurement and production operations.
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We normally finance this expansion of current assets with cash, short-term borrowings from banks, and customer advances, and these funding sources normally reach their peak usage in each region during its respective purchasing or processing period.
−Removed: Our balance sheet at our fiscal year end reflects seasonal expansions in working capital in South America and Central America.
Our financial performance is also impacted by the seasonality of our business.
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(“Pyxus”), and we consider ourselves and Pyxus to be the only global leaf suppliers based on our worldwide scope of operations.
−Removed: However, Universal is the only global leaf tobacco supplier with operations in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Poland and that participates in the sale and production of dark air-cured tobaccos.
+Added: However, Universal is the only global leaf tobacco supplier with operations in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Poland and that participates meaningfully in the sale and production of dark air-cured tobaccos.
Most of our major customers are partially vertically integrated, thus they also compete with us for the purchase of leaf tobacco in several of the major markets.
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In most major leaf tobacco markets, smaller competitors are active and typically are opportunistic and have lower overhead requirements, but they generally provide less agronomic support to farmers.
−Removed: Due to their lower cost structures, they tend to offer a lower price, but amongst others our long-term presence, our investments in employees, facilities and communities, our GAP and Agricultural Labor Practices (“ALP”) programs, our sustainability efforts and supply chain monitoring as well as our quality controls add value for our customers in an increasingly regulated world.
+Added: Due to their lower cost structures, they tend to offer a lower price, but among other things, our long-term presence, our investments in employees, facilities and communities, our GAP and Agricultural Labor Practices (“ALP”) programs, our sustainability efforts and supply chain monitoring as well as our quality controls add value for our customers in an increasingly regulated world.
Our GAP training supports an approach to farming that is focused on sustainability, sound field production, and fair labor management practices that promote farmer profitability and reflect environmental sensitivity.
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Ingredients Operations
−Removed: Similar to the tobacco side of our business, our Ingredients Operations source raw materials globally to provide our customers with a consistent, high-quality, and stable supply of plant-based ingredients.
−Removed: A variety of value-added manufacturing processes are then used in these businesses to convert such raw materials.
−Removed: We produce a wide spectrum of fruit and vegetable juices, concentrates, dehydrated products, botanical extracts, flavorings, and innovative, value-added ingredients utilizing products and capabilities across the entire Universal Ingredients platform.
−Removed: We strategically invested in established companies with strong financial records.
−Removed: These businesses operate in different markets (fruits, vegetables, and flavors) and offer value-added services that can apply broadly to multiple parts of our Ingredients Operations to better meet our customers’ needs for unique, plant-based ingredients.
−Removed: By diversifying our portfolio in the ingredients space through the acquisitions of FruitSmart, Inc.
+Added: Similar to Universal’s Tobacco Operations, our Ingredients Operations source raw materials globally and utilize value-added manufacturing processes to provide customers with a consistent, high-quality, and reliable supply of plant-based ingredients.
+Added: Through the Universal Ingredients platform, we produce and supply a broad portfolio of products, including fruit and vegetable juices and concentrates, purees, dehydrated products, botanical extracts, flavorings, colorings, and other customized, value-added ingredient solutions.
+Added: The Universal Ingredients platform has been built through strategic investments in established businesses with strong operating histories and complementary capabilities across fruits, vegetables, and flavorings.
+Added: Our primary subsidiaries – FruitSmart, Inc.
(“FruitSmart”), Silva International, Inc.
−Removed: (“Silva”), and Shank’s Extracts, LLC d/b/a Universal Ingredients–Shank’s (“Universal Ingredients–Shank’s”), we are positioned to deliver customizable products and solutions to our customers.
−Removed: FruitSmart supplies a broad set of juices, concentrates, pomaces, purees, fruit fibers, seeds, seed powders, and other value-added products to food, beverage, and flavor companies throughout the United States and internationally.
−Removed: Its top products are not-from-concentrate apple juice as well as apple, blueberry, concord grape, and raspberry juice concentrates.
−Removed: We believe that FruitSmart is well positioned to benefit from growing consumer preferences for better-for-you premium ingredients, including custom blends, not-from-concentrate and dry products, and strong growth in targeted end markets including ciders, purees and nutraceuticals.
−Removed: FruitSmart is headquartered in the Yakima Valley in Washington State and has approximately 200 employees.
−Removed: FruitSmart operates two separate manufacturing facilities:
−Removed: one that produces liquid products and one that produces dry products.
−Removed: In fiscal year 2025, FruitSmart embarked on several automation projects that utilize robotics to increase efficiency, enhance capacity, and increase health and safety protocols.
−Removed: Silva procures over 60 types of dehydrated vegetables, fruits, and herbs from over 20 countries around the world and specializes in processing natural materials into custom designed dehydrated vegetable and fruit-based ingredients for a variety of end products.
−Removed: Its top five ingredients product categories are vegetable blends, peppers, spinach, carrots, and pumpkin.
−Removed: Headquartered in Momence, Illinois, Silva employs over 200 people and has a 380,000 square foot manufacturing facility.
−Removed: Silva has established a reputation as the go-to provider of clean, natural, specialty dehydrated vegetable and fruit-based ingredients due to its unique competencies and significant capacity to source, process, and manufacture materials.
−Removed: Silva also has longstanding relationships with suppliers and their farmers around the world and maintains strong quality control procedures to ensure a consistent, high-quality supply of ingredients.
−Removed: Universal Ingredients–Shank’s offers a diversified portfolio of over 2,400 botanical extracts, distillates, natural flavors, and colors for industrial and private label customers worldwide, and is known for significant vanilla expertise.
−Removed: Universal Ingredients–Shank’s is also equipped to offer customers custom bottling and packaging for their products.
−Removed: Universal Ingredients–Shank’s employs more than 300 people at their 194,000 square foot manufacturing campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
−Removed: In fiscal year 2025, Universal completed a major expansion project at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility.
−Removed: The project added an industry-leading combination of extraction, blending, and aseptic packaging.
−Removed: The investment also added refrigerated storage and enhanced capabilities to support additional customer demand and growth into new product categories and markets.
−Removed: To support Universal Ingredients, we have invested in building out our sales, marketing and product development teams focused on creating value across the entire platform.
−Removed: This platform-level support enables us to deliver unique, custom products to our customers.
−Removed: Our research and development function includes highly trained food scientists and professionals who are skilled in the creation of various food and beverages to showcase the value of our ingredients.
−Removed: Some examples of the concepts developed by our research and development group include ready-to-drink teas and coffees, carbonated soft drinks, nutritional smoothies, and bakery items.
−Removed: The commercial sales team consists of seasoned sales professionals who work closely with the research and development team.
−Removed: This platform team is tasked with becoming subject matter experts on the entire suite of products to help leverage the full potential of the ingredients portfolio and drive earnings growth.
−Removed: Longer term, we believe we will be able to enhance our overall product offerings and achieve significant operational synergies by leveraging Universal’s existing global sourcing capabilities, strong relationships with our farmer base, and agronomic expertise.
−Removed: Our Ingredients Operations primarily service the food and beverage industry, which is diverse and encompasses a variety of companies that cater to different market segments.
−Removed: These companies can range from small, privately held regional food and beverage brands to multinational food and beverage companies.
−Removed: The food and beverage market is segmented into many different categories including retailers, food service providers, consumer packaged goods companies, and beverage companies.
−Removed: Silva also has a large presence in the pet food market.
−Removed: With our most recent investments in our Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility, we will be focusing heavily on the food service, beverage and casual dining markets.
−Removed: Our investment in the research and development function in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, supports our ability to meet the demands of such a large and diverse group of customers.
−Removed: Universal Ingredients serves the human and pet food markets as well as the beverage market, one of the largest industrial categories in the United States.
−Removed: There are thousands of companies represented in the plant-based ingredients segment and hundreds that offer similar or competitive types of products.
−Removed: The market remains highly fragmented with many competitors being relatively small, privately-owned, entrepreneurial companies that lack corporate level support for product development, platform sales, and capital investments.
−Removed: We distinguish ourselves in this market by offering high-quality, innovative, customized product solutions with global sourcing capabilities and having strong, long-standing customer relationships.
+Added: (“Silva”), and Shank’s Extracts, LLC d/b/a Universal Ingredients–Shank's (“Universal Ingredients–Shank’s”) – operate in distinct but highly complementary categories.
+Added: Collectively, these businesses enable the delivery of integrated, customized solutions that leverage sourcing, processing, and product development capabilities across the platform.
+Added: FruitSmart supplies a diversified portfolio of fruit- and vegetable-based ingredients to customers in the United States and international markets, including juices, concentrates, essences, purees, pomaces, fibers, seeds, and seed-based products.
+Added: Core offerings include not-from-concentrate apple juice and a range of juice concentrates, including apple, blueberry, Concord grape, and raspberry.
+Added: Headquartered in the Yakima Valley in Washington State, FruitSmart operates separate liquid and dry production facilities.
+Added: The business focuses on operational efficiency, capacity utilization, and health and safety initiatives, while positioning its portfolio of products to benefit from increasing demand for premium, better-for-you, and functional ingredients.
+Added: Silva procures over 70 types of dehydrated vegetables, fruits, and herbs and spices from over 20 countries around the world and specializes in processing natural materials into dehydrated vegetable- and fruit-based ingredients tailored for a range of food applications.
+Added: Silva’s product portfolio includes vegetable blends and individual ingredients such as peppers, spinach, carrots, and pumpkin.
+Added: Headquartered in Momence, Illinois, Silva operates a large-scale manufacturing facility and maintains strong supplier relationships and quality control processes to support consistent, high-quality supply of ingredients.
+Added: Silva has established a strong position in clean-label, natural, and specialty dehydrated ingredients, providing solutions for diverse applications in the human food industry as well as the pet food market.
+Added: Universal Ingredients–Shank’s provides a diversified portfolio of botanical extracts, distillates, natural and artificial flavors, and colors for industrial and private label customers worldwide, with particular expertise in vanilla.
+Added: The business also offers custom formulation, bottling, and packaging services.
+Added: The manufacturing campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania includes extraction, blending, and aseptic processing and packaging capabilities, supported by refrigerated storage and expanded production capacity.
+Added: Recent investments in this facility have enhanced the business’s ability to serve growth categories, including beverages, food service, and specialty applications, while enabling greater innovation and speed to market.
+Added: To support the continued growth of Universal Ingredients, we have made investments in centralized sales, marketing, and product development capabilities that operate across the platform.
+Added: Our research and development team, including our product development lab in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is staffed with food scientists and technical professionals who collaborate with customers to develop and commercialize new products.
+Added: These capabilities support a wide range of applications, including ready-to-drink beverages, coffees, teas, carbonated beverages, nutritional products, and bakery items.
+Added: Our teams work closely with our research and development professionals to provide integrated solutions and to leverage the full breadth of the platform’s capabilities in bringing products to market.
+Added: We believe our ability to combine global sourcing, value-added processing, and customer-focused innovation differentiates us in this highly-fragmented market.
+Added: Over time, we intend to explore the enhancement of our product offerings and the promotion of operational efficiencies by leveraging our global supply chain, agronomic expertise, and long-standing relationships with growers and suppliers.
+Added: Our Ingredients Operations primarily serve the food and beverage industry, including multinational consumer packaged goods companies, food service providers, beverage manufacturers, and retailers, as well as regional and specialty brands.
+Added: These customers operate across diverse end-markets and applications, spanning a wide range of distribution channels.
+Added: Many customers across these end-markets place value on research and development, application expertise, and collaborative product innovation.
+Added: To support these needs and anticipated growth, our recent investments, particularly in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility, have expanded our research and development and application capabilities, as well as production capacity in beverage, food service, and related channels.
+Added: These investments enhance the platform’s ability to support customized formulations, rapid product development, and reinforce readiness to meet evolving customer demand over time.
+Added: The plant-based ingredients market is large and highly fragmented, with thousands of participants ranging from small, privately-owned companies to large multinational suppliers.
+Added: Many competitors focus on specific product categories or regional
+Added: markets and may have more limited capabilities in areas such as product development, integrated sourcing, or large-scale capital investment.
+Added: We compete by offering high-quality, customized ingredient solutions supported by global sourcing capabilities, value-added processing, and integrated platform-level sales, marketing, and product development.
+Added: We believe our scale, breadth of capabilities, customer relationships, and continued investments in innovation and capacity position Universal Ingredients to compete effectively across its markets.
Sustainability
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Sustainability efforts with respect to our facilities around the world involve the adoption and implementation of policies and procedures related to environmental impacts, workforce protections and programs such as those we address in “Human Capital Management” below, and other important considerations.
−Removed: Sustainability efforts in our supply chain emphasize important issues related to the countries and communities in which we operate and include the protection of farm worker rights through appropriate agricultural labor practices and monitoring the reduction of environmental impacts through compliance with industry-recognized GAP programs, as well as our own environmental programs and initiatives.
−Removed: Agricultural Labor Practices ( “ ALP ” )
+Added: Sustainability efforts in our supply chain emphasize important issues related to the countries and communities in which we operate and include and focus on the protection of tobacco farm worker rights through appropriate agricultural labor practices and monitoring the reduction of environmental impacts through compliance with industry-recognized GAP programs, as well as our own environmental programs and initiatives.
+Added: Agricultural Labor Practices
Throughout the world, we work side-by-side with our contracted farmers to produce a sustainable tobacco crop that adheres to GAP and appropriate ALP.
16 unchanged sentences
Recent Initiatives
−Removed: Universal released our 2024 Sustainability Report in December 2024, highlighting our efforts in strengthening supply chain resiliency, maintaining our strong partnerships with our farming communities, and advancing energy efficiency.
+Added: Universal released our 2025 Sustainability Report in January 2026, highlighting our efforts in reducing emissions, conserving resources, advancing fair labor practices, and improving farmer livelihoods.
Responsible business practices are integrated into Universal’s business strategy.
−Removed: As disclosed in our 2024 Sustainability Report, we continued to support our supply chain sustainability goals and substantially met our existing targets of zero child labor, appropriate labor accommodations, farm worker minimum wage payments, and personal protective equipment access.
+Added: As disclosed in our 2025 Sustainability Report, we continued to support our supply chain sustainability goals and achieve measurable results across key environmental and social priorities.
Our leaf technicians made over 2 million visits to more than 200,000 contracted farmers to maintain our visibility and traceability in our supply chain.
1 unchanged sentence
Universal’s climate transition plan includes reducing fossil fuel use, purchasing renewable forms of electricity, and enhancing operational efficiencies throughout our operations and value chain.
−Removed: These actions support the Company’s goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions across the value chain by 2050.
−Removed: Universal is actively transitioning to cleaner fuels around the world.
−Removed: Diesel and coal fuels are being replaced with electricity and biomass where possible to reduce our GHG emissions footprint.
−Removed: Renewable energy plays a significant role in our journey to net-zero, so we have developed plans to purchase Renewable Energy Credits where possible and have signed a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (“VPPA”) for solar-powered energy that we expect to reduce our total scope 1 and 2 emissions in North America by 45%.
+Added: To align our carbon reduction strategy with industry standards, we updated our emissions reduction goals and received approval of near-term, long-term and net zero
+Added: emissions targets from the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTI) during 2025.
+Added: These actions support the Company’s goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain by 2050.
For a discussion of recent developments and trends in our businesses, along with factors that could have a material adverse effect on our businesses see Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”
13 unchanged sentences
We are a multinational and multicultural organization, with employees and operations located around the world, and we are committed to maintaining an inclusive workplace.
−Removed: Only around 4.8% of our employees are located in the United States.
+Added: Less than 5% of our employees are located in the United States.
Almost all of our employees are from the same country in which our related operations are located.
1 unchanged sentence
Board of Directors’ Role in Human Capital Management
−Removed: Our Board of Directors believes that human capital management is an important component of our continued growth and success and is essential to our ability to attract, retain, and develop talented and skilled employees.
+Added: Our Board of Directors (“Board”) believes that human capital management is an important component of our continued growth and success and is essential to our ability to attract, retain, and develop talented and skilled employees.
We pride ourselves on a culture that respects co-workers and values concern for others.
2 unchanged sentences
The Nominating, Governance and Risk Committee oversees and reviews our sustainability programs, which include important policies and practices related to human rights, prohibitions against discrimination, employee health and safety, and other policies related to our workforce.
−Removed: The Compensation and Human Resources Committee oversees administration of the Company’s human resource programs and has oversight of compensation, benefits, and retention and development processes of senior management, including an annual review of the Company’s succession planning and leadership development program.
+Added: The Compensation and Human Resources Committee oversees administration of the Company’s human resource programs, including with respect to talent management, succession planning, and performance management.
We are committed to protecting the human rights of our employees and have policies in place to support this effort, including those relating to whistleblowing, harassment, equal employment, and compliance with local labor laws.
−Removed: Our Board of Directors also adopted our Code of Conduct (the “Code”) and Anti-Corruption Compliance Manual (the “Manual”) to promote ethical behavior throughout the Company and address violations of ethical standards.
−Removed: The Code and Manual have been translated into 16 languages and apply directly to all officers, directors, and non-seasonal employees in the Universal family of companies.
−Removed: The Board of Directors also adopted our Human Rights Policy, which defines the high ethical and social standards we implement across our global operations.
−Removed: We support these rights and programs through compliance communications, face-to-face and online training, and an anonymous compliance hotline that we maintain globally.
−Removed: Our compliance hotline is available to all our employees and any other interested parties 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by internet or phone.
−Removed: The Board of Directors oversees our global compliance program and receives reports from our Chief Compliance Officer at each quarterly Board of Directors meeting.
+Added: Our Board also adopted our Code of Conduct (the “Code”) and Anti-Corruption Compliance Manual (the “Manual”) to promote ethical behavior throughout the Company and address violations of ethical standards.
+Added: The Code and Manual have been translated into 16 languages and apply directly to all officers, directors, and employees in the Universal family of companies.
+Added: The Board also adopted our Human Rights Policy, which defines the high ethical and social standards we implement across our global operations.
+Added: We support these rights and programs through compliance communications, face-to-face and online training, and an anonymous compliance line that we maintain globally.
+Added: Our compliance line is available to all our employees and any other interested parties 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by internet or phone.
+Added: The Board oversees our global compliance program and receives reports from our Chief Compliance Officer at each quarterly Board meeting.
Employee Compensation and Benefits
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Talent Development and Training
+Added: This fiscal year we created the role of Chief Human Resources Officer to further strengthen Universal’s organizational capabilities.
+Added: Reporting directly to our Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Human Resources Officer provides strategic direction and oversight for our global human resources function and human capital management programs, supporting the development, engagement, and long-term success of our workforce.
Employee training and development of both technical and leadership skills are integral aspects of our human capital strategy.
5 unchanged sentences
Health and Safety
−Removed: The health and safety of our employees is at the forefront of our business efforts.
−Removed: We are committed to the prevention of injury and illness in the workplace through strong health and safety management, employee empowerment and accountability, and strict compliance with health and safety regulations.
−Removed: Our programs are designed to influence our Company’s culture through employee engagement and leadership behavior.
−Removed: We pair our health and safety management system with a strong database reporting tool to allow all Universal facilities to track their local occupational health and safety performance and that of the entire company.
−Removed: These reports allow our global teams to analyze the insights collected from our health and safety system immediately to support compliance and promote continuous improvement.
−Removed: Additionally, we utilize other health and safety initiatives to ensure our facilities remain safe for our employees.
−Removed: We established health and safety metrics across our tobacco factory and agronomy operations.
−Removed: Each factory carries out an in-depth data analysis of prior data and implements health and safety metrics for improvement and monitoring.
−Removed: By giving employees a goal to achieve and monitor, they will be more engaged in what they do and better able to help us succeed.
−Removed: Our “fresh eyes” approach to workplace safety involves inviting colleagues from different facilities to share in cross-auditing tasks.
−Removed: In addition to corporate audits, we encourage this regional cross-auditing to promote a collaborative framework and drive our employee safety programs forward.
−Removed: Legal compliance is a fundamental aspect of our health and safety practices.
−Removed: Universal companies seek to adhere to full compliance with health and safety laws and regulations and cooperate with local authorities to maintain strong health and safety programs.
−Removed: As part of our commitment to a robust supply chain, our policies require our suppliers and partners to uphold healthy and safe work environments in compliance with all relevant regulations.
+Added: The health and safety of our employees, contractors, and visitors is a core business priority and a fundamental component of Universal’s risk management framework.
+Added: Universal is committed to preventing work-related injuries and illnesses through a structured health and safety management system that emphasizes leadership accountability, employee participation, and compliance with applicable laws and requirements.
+Added: Health and safety expectations are embedded into operational decision-making and reinforced through governance, performance monitoring, and continual improvement processes.
+Added: Our health and safety management system is designed to strengthen organizational safety culture by establishing clear expectations for leadership behavior, empowering employees to identify and address hazards, and reinforcing accountability at all levels of the organization.
+Added: Standardized reporting and performance tracking tools enable facilities to monitor local performance while providing corporate leadership with timely, comparable insights across operations.
+Added: This approach supports the identification of emerging risks, prioritization of corrective actions, and effective allocation of resources to reduce exposure and prevent harm.
+Added: To support continuous improvement, key health and safety performance measures have been established across our tobacco processing and agronomy operations.
+Added: We regularly evaluate historical performance, identify site-specific risk drivers, and implement measurable objectives.
+Added: These measures are designed to support informed decision-making, strengthen prevention efforts, and promote accountability and long-term risk reduction.
+Added: Performance is reviewed through established governance processes to ensure alignment with corporate expectations and to inform ongoing improvement planning.
+Added: Assurance and shared learning are reinforced through corporate audits and regional cross-auditing initiatives.
+Added: Our “fresh eyes” approach brings together employees from different locations to participate in peer reviews, promoting consistency, collaboration, and the exchange of best practices.
+Added: This approach complements formal audits, broadens organizational perspective, and reinforces shared responsibility for safety performance across the organization.
+Added: Legal compliance remains a foundational requirement of our health and safety program.
+Added: Universal companies are expected to comply with applicable occupational health and safety laws and regulations and to cooperate with regulatory authorities in maintaining effective and compliant programs.
+Added: As part of our broader commitment to a responsible and resilient supply chain, our policies require suppliers and business partners to provide healthy and safe working environments and to meet applicable legal and contractual health and safety requirements.
+Added: Through governance, monitoring, and engagement, we seek to apply health and safety expectations consistently across our operations and supply chain, supporting sustained improvement and long-term value creation.
Research and Development
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Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.