Puratos gains carbon neutral status for its Chocolanté 60DAYS series
pic: Puratos
Global ingredients group Puratos has confirmed it has made major progress on its sustainability goals after its Chocolanté 60DAYS Chocolate was awarded Carbon Neutral Certification, writes Neill Barston.
As the company explained, this is the first from its international range to earn the accreditation, which the company asserted underlined its environmentally responsible credentials.
The globally-recognised accreditation illustrates Puratos’s commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of its products and offsetting any remaining emissions through meaningful environmental initiatives.
Notably, its 60Day series is presently available in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, France, and Belgium and will soon be available for other European customers in Italy.
Belgian climate consultancy CO2logic independently assessed the greenhouse gas emissions of all production activities for 60DAYS chocolate, including the purchase of ingredients, transportation, energy consumption during manufacturing and packaging.
The unique-tasting, responsibly-sourced chocolate, created in Vietnam by joint venture Puratos Grand-Place Indochina (PGPI), was found to meet the requirements of the carbon neutral standard – making Chocolanté 60DAYS Chocolate Puratos’s first carbon-neutral-certified product.
Gricha Safarian, Managing Director at Puratos Grand-Place Indochina (PGPI), said: “We believe a great chocolate product must not only taste good but must also be produced in an environmentally-friendly way as far as possible. That is why we pursued carbon-neutral certification. Achieving it is a part of our wider sustainability commitments and a great stride towards achieving our carbon-neutral objective. At Puratos, our purpose is to move the planet forward together with our customers and this is a key step for the industry.”
Chocolanté 60DAYS Chocolate goes beyond industry standards. It aims to reinvent the chocolate process by combining fermentation in wooden acacia boxes with slow roast methods to create ‘tree to bar’ chocolate in 60 days. This sympathetic process generates lower emissions, thanks to its close-to-source production and short transition time. From a taste and quality perspective, customers benefit from a fresher and more flavoursome product, with low sugar content.
Although 60DAYS is the first Puratos product to achieve carbon-neutral status, it is not the first such accreditation for the international ingredients supplier. In December 2021, PGPI became the first entity of the global Puratos Group to achieve carbon-neutral certification for its business operations, following an assessment of the company’s manufacturing and operational processes. Production at its sites in Brazil, Thailand, Philippines and Austria have been certified carbon-neutral at the end of 2022. By the end of 2023, more sites are on track for carbon-neutrality accreditation and all facilities are expected to be 100 per cent energy-efficient and operate fully on renewable electricity. These initiatives form part of a wider group strategy for Puratos to become carbon-neutral by 2025, water-balanced by 2030 and continue moving the planet forward.
Jean-Philippe Michaux, CFO and Head of Sustainability at Puratos, adds: “As a global company, we understand the influence we have on the communities that we work with and work tirelessly to positively impact people and the planet through food that does good today and for generations to come. We’re looking forward to many more Puratos products obtaining similar certifications so we remain at the forefront of sustainable bakery, patisserie and chocolate ingredients.”