Mondelez adds new products to sustainable coca sourcing initiative

Mondelez's cocoa scheme has worked with 142

The scheme, which aims to create a better supply chain for cocoa by increasing yields, building resilience, and preventing deforestation, currently produces 43% of the company’s cocoa. But now the firm plans to add Toblerone and Lacta alongside other brands to Milka, Cote d’Or and Cadbury Dairy Milk in sourcing exclusively through the programme.

This expansion will see an increase in the number of farmers and communities it supports across six cocoa origin countries: Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, India and Brazil.

The announcement came alongside an annual report into the scheme which showed it had worked with 142,000 farmers and 1,400 communities. The programme now aims to focus on key areas of intervention such as cocoa farming as a prosperous business of choice; empowered and inclusive communities that drive their own development; conservation and restoration of forests enabling climate-resilient practices.

Mondelez’s chief executive Dirk Van de Put said as demand for chocolate grows, it wanted to “lead the transformation” on the cocoa sector.

“Success will not be found by acting alone, and this is why we are building a movement for lasting change and scaling our holistic approach through productive, collaborative partnerships. We hope our encouraging results inspire more industry members to implement integrated approaches and broaden their impact at scale,” he said.

Community-based scheme

The programme was originally launched in 2012 with a $400m commitment over a decade to build a cocoa supply chain, working directly with farmers and communities on skills, education, access to resources such as planting materials and crop protection.

The overall Cocoa Life sourcing programme aims to eventually reach more than 200,000 farmers across six countries and benefit more than a million people by 2022.

The firm has also pledged to map all farms covered by its sustainability scheme using satellite technology by the end of this year, as it strives to eliminate deforestation from its key sourcing regions. The forest conservation efforts of more than 120,000 farmers will be monitored under the scheme.

The news follows other associated plans, such as Mondelez’s female empowerment programme, which was first rolled out in Ghana and the Ivory Coast in 2014, and will now be expanded to Indonesia and the Dominican Republic.

It aims to empower women from more than 1,000 communities across areas such as farming, youth, community, livelihoods and the environment.

James Evison

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