Drive towards sustainable cocoa

15 March 2012 – Barry Callebaut has launched a €33m cocoa sustainability initiative called Cocoa Horizons.

The initiative aims to boost farm productivity, increase quality and improve family livelihoods in key cocoa producing countries in West and Central Africa and Indonesia over ten years. Barry Callebaut will focus first on large producer countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Cameroon and Brazil, and aims to expand the initiative, to other cocoa producing countries with high development potential over the coming years.

In fiscal year 2011/2012 the company will invest €4.1m in farmer training, infrastructure and community education and health programmes. The activities will be undertaken in cooperation with agricultural and development experts and government institutions.

The initiative will enable farmers to boost farm productivity and cocoa quality through training programmes in yield enhancement techniques and sustainable cocoa production, and to be eligible for independent certification according to multiple cocoa sustainability standards.

Barry Callebaut will improve access to education in cocoa farming communities and promoting a cocoa curriculum and other actions to develop the next generation of young cocoa farmers. Access to basic health care and clean water will also be addressed.

Farms need to improve productivity as although 2010/11 delivered a bumper cocoa crop due to favourable weather conditions, during the last six years the annual cocoa supply has frequently fallen short of demand. Barry Callebaut estimates that by 2020 the global cocoa and chocolate industry will need an additional one million metric tons of cocoa to meet the rising demand for chocolate, driven by markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas.