Major European chocolate brands such as Côte d'Or and now Milka are also committed to sustainable cocoa farming. Shops of supermarket chain Colruyt also carry chocolate from a sustainable chain. The Belgian formula is working to enable young cocoa farmers to cultivate sustainably. In this way, chocolate increasingly acquires a responsible origin.
Milka, Mondelēz Europe's chocolate brand, starts in sustainability programme Cocoa Life and will process sustainably grown cocoa as raw material. Milka succeeds Côte d'Or, which started the Cocoa Life programme three years ago in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
From August, the Cocoa Life logo will appear on the packaging of chocolate bars and by the end of next year the entire European range will be involved in this programme.
Chocolate group Mondelēz is making great strides in sustainable cocoa farming. This share rose to 35 per cent last year in Cocoa Life, 14 per cent more than two years ago. In the process, 120,500 farmers were reached in 1,085 communities and more than a million shade trees were planted as part of the global fight against climate change.
Other major Mondelēz chocolate brands such as Oreo biscuits in Europe, Cadbury Dairy Milk in the UK and Ireland and Freia and Marabou in Scandinavia also already work with the Cocoa Life programme. Hubert Weber, Executive Vice President and President of Mondelēz Europe: "The programme is achieving great successes and we hope to move a little closer to the goal again with this step: reaching 200,000 farmers and 1,000,000 people by 2022."
Mondelēz International's ultimate goal is to use only sustainable cocoa, mainly through Cocoa Life. Working with growers, NGOs, suppliers and government agencies, Cocoa Life is part of Mondelēz International's Impact For Growth, a movement that seeks business growth with positive change in the world.
Sustainable cocoa chain
Cocoa Life, which thus expects to reach more than 200,000 growers in six countries by 2022, aims to establish a sustainable cocoa supply chain that simultaneously has a lasting impact on lives and livelihoods, addresses deforestation and provides additional support in the fight against climate change in six cocoa-producing countries: Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, India and Brazil. The programme focuses on five areas in cocoa farming: agriculture, communities, income, youth and environment. The programme's progress can be followed at www.cocoalife.org/progress.
Also in the supermarket
It does not stop with the efforts of chocolate manufacturers, supermarkets are also committed to responsibly sourced chocolate. Thus, sustainable chocolate from Nicaragua is now on the shelves of Colruyt, OKay and Spar Colruyt Group.
Boni Selection private label chocolate comes from cocoa beans from young farmers of La Campesina, a cocoa cooperative in Nicaragua. They gain knowledge in modern and sustainable cocoa production techniques with an annual investment of EUR 30,000 from Collibri Foundation, Colruyt Group's business fund.
Colruyt Group in turn ensures a guaranteed market for this certified cocoa and thus financial stability for these farmers. Through 2019, the company is investing EUR 2.1 million in such formation projects through Collibri Foundation to link them to sustainable chain products where young people are trained locally in cocoa cultivation. Collibri Foundation is partnering with Rikolto, an international organisation in the agriculture and food sector, for this project. Rikolto, through eight regional offices with teams in 15 countries, initiates collaborations between farmers' organisations and players in the food chain.
