Barry Callebaut extends cocoa sourcing sustainability target to 2030
SWITZERLAND – Swiss chocolate firm Barry Callebaut has extended its timeframe to achieve the goal of sustainably sourcing 100 percent of its cocoa and other ingredients by five years to 2030, especially from farmer groups located in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
In 2016, the group adopted an ambitious plan to eradicate child labor in cocoa plantations and lift 500,000 farmers out of poverty by 2025, after which several programs have been launched.
In a communication, the chocolate firm said, “It will use its sharpened targets as a springboard to extend the horizon beyond 2025.”
The group said it has added additional targets and that by 2030 it will have completely certified or verified cocoa and ingredients in all its products as sustainable, and traceable back to the farms.
Oliver von Hagen, the group’s director for sustainable global ingredients, said the company wanted to be “more specific about what it is committing to.”
He added that the group will need the extra five years to ensure sustainable supplies for the remaining fifth of their ingredients.
With sustainable sourcing, 100% of the farmers are to be polygon mapped, and 100% of the households are covered by Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems (CLMRS).
CLMRS was developed 20 years ago by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and later adapted for use in the cocoa sector.
In a recent collaborative study, which proposes a common operational definition of a CLMRS and sets out key indicators to monitor progress, the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), European cocoa platforms, and their members aim to foster greater harmonization and alignment to catalyze the scale-up of effective systems to cover 100% of cocoa households in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana by 2025.
As much as Barry Callebaut has opted to delay its goal in cocoa sourcing, the company recently launched its Income Accelerator in Ivory Coast to support increased incomes for cocoa farming households through the provision of cash transfers (CTs) and investments in village savings and loan associations (VSLAs).
The Zurich-based group noted that the Income Accelerator offers a proven, multi-faceted approach to help address cocoa farmer poverty while also supporting sustainable farming practices and mitigating the risk of child labor.
Hershey is also targeting 100% of its plastic packaging to be recyclable, reusable, or compostable, as well as also reducing its packaging weight by 25 million by 2030.
As part of land use, the company has committed to ending deforestation across its supply chain by 2030 with a new company-wide deforestation policy.
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