FEATS IN SWEETS: WHO WINS YOUR 2014 VOTE?
Barry Parkin, CSO at Mars
Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars, has been the face of the company's move to sustainable cocoa. Mars was the first of the major chocolate companies to commit to fully certified cocoa when in 2009 it pledged to source its entire supply from UTZ, Fairtrade and other certifiers by 2020.
Under Parkin's stewardship, Mars' Cocoa Sustainability Initiative has worked with farmers to improve their productivity and his division has also sequenced the cocoa genome, which could lead to higher-yielding, disease resistant cacao trees.
A source not working for Mars, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Mars’ sustainability strategy had been example to the entire sector. Barry Parkin was named chairman of the World Cocoa Foundation in May and unveiled 'CocoaAction', an industry-led cocoa sustainability initiative that aims to harmonize programs run by the world's leading chocolate companies.