Barry Callebaut claims gains in latest Forever Chocolate sustainability report

Swiss-headquartered Barry Callebaut has claimed notable gains in its global sustainable sourcing, according to the sixth edition of its Forever Chocolate progress Report, writes Neill Barston.

The company has previously outlined its significant plans that it aimed to remove around 500,000 farmers from poverty by 2025, and eliminate the worst forms of child labour, against a backdrop of major challenges facing some of its core territories including Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Consequently, the business said it now has achieved 49.4% (up from 42% last year) of its products sourced sustainably, against its overall target of 100% fully certified, which it says it is continuing to work towards through upscaling its community engagement and agroforestry actions.

As the company explained, it has judged its sustainability on metrics including premium payments to farmers, as well as improvement of farming practices, as well as addressing child labour, deforestation and carbon emissions. A total of 73% of its products are now covered by sustainability standards (against 66% last year).

Despite such gains, major underlying issues, namely child labour within West Africa remains firmly in the spotlight, affecting more than 1.5 million young people, with the issue thought to have been further impacted by the present cost of living crisis.

This has created further inflationary pressures on a global scale, negatively affecting farming communities, which are attempting to handle fluctuating cocoa prices, as well as major rises in the cost of key fertilisers impacting crop yields. As has previously been reported, governments and farmers alike have called for an uprating of cocoa prices to enable farmers to gain a living wage – with many working in agriculture still earning less than $1 a day in many instances.

Despite this backdrop, Barry Callebaut believed that progress has indeed been made, through the Cocoa Horizons scheme, whereby in 2021/22, it reported significant growth in premiums, driven by solid demand from customers seeking a program that focuses on impact. Cocoa Horizons premiums generated by our customers rose to CHF 37.4 million in funds (+30%).

In total, the business product range includes roughly half of its interests relating to cocoa, with the remainder being sugar, dairy, palm oil, coconut oil, sweeteners, nuts and vanilla.

As the company noted, each ingredient has its own sustainability challenges, with the firm stating it is committed to work with industry programmes and suppliers to raise standards. This includes formalisation of the sustainable coconut and coconut oil roundtable as well as the new standard on sweeteners introduced by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI).

Peter Boone, CEO of the Barry Callebaut Group said: “Forever Chocolate is our plan to make sustainable chocolate the norm, and it is truly becoming a reality! With the support of our customers, one out of two products we sell contain sustainably sourced cocoa or chocolate.”

Furthermore, the business highlighted its key achievements in the past year – its Farm Services Business continued to support 171,710 (+36.7%) farmers in 2021/22. In addition, programs supporting subsidised soil inputs and paid labour teams to improve cocoa quality yield per hectare were ranges across 8,000 hectares.

Significantly, a total of 80.6% of the farmer groups that are part of our direct supply chain have systems in place to prevent, monitor and remediate child labour, compared to 61.4% in prior year.

Furthermore, the company claimed an intensification of its agroforestry approach across 11,000 hectares in Ghana and Ivory Coast, with a focus on long-term success through training, extended monitoring and payment for ecosystem services.