Barry Callebaut on track to fully sustainable chocolate, progress report flags

06 Dec 2021 --- The latest “Forever Chocolate” progress report by Barry Callebaut shows the company is working toward its goal to produce completely sustainable chocolate by 2025. Reducing poverty in its cocoa farmer workforce remains a core focus in the coming years.

A key achievement thus far has been the reduction of the company’s carbon intensity per metric ton of product by more than 17% since 2016.

In addition, 214,584 cocoa farmers are estimated to be liberated from poverty in the company’s direct supply chain. Barry Callebaut’s child labor monitoring and remediation system covers 237 farmer groups, including 220,878 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon.

Cocoa with a delicate impact
This financial year’s Forever Chocolate progress report shows more than a 10% reduction of Land Use Change (LUC) from the impact of cocoa due to company strides in traceability and sourcing.

There has been significant growth in Cocoa Horizons, with the premiums generating over CHF 28.4 million (US$30.87 million) in funds, an increase of more than 63% compared to 2020.

On top of this, 43% of Barry Callebaut products sold contained 100% sustainable cocoa or chocolate.

Both on-farm and off-farm efforts, such as soil regeneration and the creation of carbon sinks, are being employed. In this way, cocoa farmers can reduce pesticides and fungicides. In addition, cocoa grown in the shade is linked to increased biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and nutrient retention in the soil.About 43% of Barry Callebaut products sold contained 100% sustainable cocoa. 

The company increased its planting capacity to 35 trees per hectare, including teak, mahogany and sejula, in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, accounting for 240,000 metric tons in CO2e reduction in 2021. 

In 2020, Barry Callebaut reduced its overall carbon footprint by 8.1%, from 8.5 million to 7.8 million metric tons of CO2e.

This year, the company also made moves to appeal to upcycled products with the WholeFruit chocolate range.

Mapping poverty in supply chains
In a concerted effort to weed out poverty among their cocoa farming workforce, consisting of 500,000 farmers, Barry Callebaut uses an extensive farm mapping database to cover 234,997 farmers in the 2020/2021 financial year.

The company reports that it has discovered that farm-specific support is more effective than a one-size-fits-all approach over the past five years. In 2020/21, about 125,593 cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador and Indonesia received Farm Services support.

Barry Callebaut will use the International Poverty Line definition of extreme poverty of US$1.90 per day to measure progress in this regard. It plans to place farmers on a trajectory of earning a living income through increased productivity and income diversification. The current estimate is that 214,584 cocoa farmers in the supply chain are no longer poor.

Remediation of child labor
The most prevalent child labor type is young children working on family farms under hazardous conditions.

Barry Callebaut believes the solution to eliminate child labor in chocolate production is to assess and remediate the risk of children becoming involved in child labor. The company pledges to follow this course of action in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Monitoring and remediation systems grew to cover 237 farmer groups, including 220,878 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon. In addition, 25,486 of the reported child labor cases are now under remediation. 

The company finalized its child labor strategy in partnership with Embode, the international social protection and human rights consultancy.

Edited by Inga de Jong