Barry Callebaut accelerates drive towards sustainable cocoa

Barry Callebaut has launched a CHF 40 million cocoa sustainability initiative to boost farm productivity, increase quality and improve family livelihoods in key cocoa producing countries in West and Central Africa and Indonesia over 10 years.

In fiscal year 2011/2012 the company will invest CHF 5 million in farmer training, infrastructure and community education and health programs.

The activities will be undertaken in cooperation with agricultural and development experts and government institutions.

Barry Callebaut will focus first on large producer countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Cameroon and Brazil, and aims to expand the initiative, called Cocoa Horizons, to other cocoa producing countries with high development potential over the coming years.

“The scarcity of quality cocoa is a serious concern that touches the heart of our business – because without more cocoa, we can’t produce more chocolate. Innovative and comprehensive solutions are urgently needed to reverse the overall decline in global cocoa production. We’ve therefore made sustainable cocoa a pillar of our company’s ambitious growth strategy, and accelerated our longtime efforts to ensure sustainable cocoa production. Our newest initiative, “Cocoa Horizons”, is the most ambitious and far reaching sustainability program in Barry Callebaut’s history,” said CEO Juergen B. Steinemann.

The initiative builds on Barry Callebaut’s proven Quality Partner Program (QPP) for cocoa farmer cooperatives.

Launched in 2005, and currently engaging more than 40,000 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, QPP was the first program of its kind to emphasize quality improvement goals for cocoa as well as farming practices.