Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, has published its new sustainability strategy “Forever Chocolate” with the ambition to move sustainable chocolate from niche to norm in less than a decade.
Four concrete targets by 2025
In order to secure the future of chocolate, Barry Callebaut’s new sustainability strategy includes four targets that the company expects to achieve by 2025 and that address the biggest sustainability challenges in the chocolate supply chain:
- Eradicate child labor from its supply chain;
- Lift more than 500,000 cocoa farmers out of poverty
- Become carbon and forest positive
- Have 100% sustainable ingredients in all its product
Despite industry’s efforts, there are a number of structural issues in the chocolate supply chain. Low productivity on cocoa farms as a result of poor agricultural practices, nutrient depleted soil, and aging cocoa trees are keeping many farmers in a state of poverty. Poverty prevents cocoa farmers from investing in their farms and new practices to increase productivity that would boost their incomes. In addition, poverty keeps farmers from hiring professional workers, forcing them to rely on their family members, including their children, to work the fields.
Sustainable chocolate also requires more than sustainable cocoa. It requires achieving zero net deforestation and curbing carbon emissions for the production of any chocolate ingredient or chocolate product.
Barry Callebaut will publish each year a report on the progress it is making towards the four targets it has defined.
The future of cocoa farming, and with it the future of chocolate looks bleak. 60% of cocoa farmers in West Africa have to live in extreme poverty. As a direct result of cocoa farmer poverty, it is estimated that more than 2 million children are working on cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana alone - which cannot be accepted. Deforestation is one of the biggest causes of global warming and threatening the ecosystem that provides chocolate ingredients. Barry Callebaut believes that by making its business more sustainable, it will also make it better and more competitive. That is why the company launched 'Forever Chocolate' to make sustainable chocolate the norm.
About Barry Callebaut Group:
With annual sales of about CHF 6.7 billion (EUR 6.1 billion / USD 6.8 billion) in fiscal year 2015/16, the Zurich-based Barry Callebaut Group is the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products – from sourcing and processing cocoa beans to producing the finest chocolates, including chocolate fillings, decorations and compounds. The Group runs more than 50 production facilities worldwide and employs a diverse and dedicated global workforce of close to 10,000 people. The Barry Callebaut Group serves the entire food industry, from industrial food manufacturers to artisanal and professional users of chocolate, such as chocolatiers, pastry chefs, bakers, hotels, restaurants or caterers. The two global brands catering to the specific needs of these Gourmet customers are Callebaut® and Cacao Barry®.
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