Rainforest Alliance says its SAT4Farming, a satellite technology that was recently adopted by 1,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana, could potentially provide ‘cheaper and more reliable’ sustainability certifications to chocolate companies.
Cargill says its licensed buying company (LBC) model has helped double sustainably sourced cocoa in Ghana during the 2017/2018 crop season to 10,000 MT, and it will extend the program to four more districts moving forward, including Debiso A, Debiso B,...
A raft of promises and reports were published on this year’s World Day Against Child Labor, highlighting the extent of forced labor in the cocoa industry with calls for greater transparency to help solve the problem.
The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) has identified 14,986 child labor cases on the cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana since 2012, but warned the reality could be a lot worse.
The Rainforest Alliance has issued science-based training materials customized for the specific cocoa-growing regions in Ghana since degrees to which those regions are affected by climate change vary.
The chocolate industry should support community-led buffer zones between tropical rainforest and cocoa farms to improve uneasy relations between farmers and their elephant neighbours, says a park manager in Ghana.
Mars Wrigley Confectionery aims to triple the global cocoa production volume in the next decade partly through developing better disease-resistant varieties, Frank Mars, member of the company's Board of Directors, recently said at the World Cocoa...
Mondelēz, Cargill, Nestlé and Tony’s Chocolonely will discuss progress and challenges in implementing Child Labor Monitoring & Remediation Systems (CLMRS) in cocoa communities at a panel during the World Cocoa Conference.
Responding to a new report from Greenpeace, confectionery giant Hershey has named its palm oil suppliers, and has revealed that it has mapped almost 100% of palm oil supply chain to the mills, and approximately 14% to the plantations.
Dandelion Chocolate will produce one of the first single origin Sierra Leonean chocolates as the country's cocoa sector looks to attract the international premium chocolate market.
The chocolate industry should report and reduce emissions in their cocoa logistics chain, which is contributing to air pollution and climate change, says The Smart Freight Centre.
The chocolate industry and supply chain actors recognize buying certified cocoa alone is not enough to make the supply chain sustainable. But what more needs to be done?
NGO Mighty Earth is calling on chocolate makers to expand deforestation-free commitments after finding widespread forest destruction driven by cocoa in Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador and Cameroon.
Nestlé USA faces a fresh class action lawsuit in the US for allegedly failing to disclose its chocolate brands may use cocoa from unlawful child or slave labor.
The chocolate industry must look beyond cocoa alone to avert another big drop in cocoa prices, says the organizer of chocolate festival and cocoa conference Chocoa.
Nine major cocoa and chocolate companies have committed $8.5m to an initiative aiming to prove a business case to improve the quality of education in Ivorian cocoa communities.
Fairtrade auditing body FLOCERT has decertified Peruvian cocoa cooperative COPASA, which was accused of being a ghost organization of major trader Ecom.
Sourcing to fair trade standards, such as UTZ, Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade, is an important first step for chocolate makers towards cocoa sustainability, but will not necessarily bring farmers out of extreme poverty, say supply chain actors.
Becoming the first country to certify the sustainability of its palm oil will boost exports and undermine 'unfair' labelling practices, a leading industry official has told us in an exclusive interview.
Major cocoa trader Ecom says a Peruvian cocoa cooperative it financially supports is not a ghost organization of Ecom after the co-op was suspended by Fairtrade.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and United Nations Environment Project have joined forces to help promote sustainable practices among smallholders producing palm oil as the environmental group sharpens its focus on smallholder farmers.
Cocoa producer organizations fear there is a growing number of so-called ‘fake cooperatives’, which are beholden to chocolate companies and cocoa traders that provide financial assistance.
Competition law can actually hinder industry efforts to boost food security by limiting collaboration, according to a new report from the UK’s Fairtrade Foundation.
Mars Wrigley Confectionery says it has achieved income and yield increases for Indian mint farmers in the first year of a five-year sustainability program.
Cocoa & Forests Initiative members have disclosed plans for ending cocoa-driven deforestation, in pledges made at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23).
Chocolate companies should rethink cocoa sustainability programs to reverse low adoption rates for training and technology, says The Scientific Committee of the International Symposium on Cocoa Research.
The UK government is launching a fund to help boost the productivity of the UK’s agri-food sector and support the adoption of innovative production technologies.
Chocolate and cocoa companies should report more on the impact than the reach of their cocoa sustainability programs, according to a consultation paper by a group of NGOs.
‘Clear business case’ to invest in women in cocoa: WINCC
Female cocoa farmers are key to accelerating cocoa sustainability, but lack the access to finance and land rights that men have, says a new network for women in the cocoa supply chain, which includes Hershey's CEO.
Cocoa trader Touton has partnered with Ghanaian government agency Cocobod to curb deforestation in Ghana, where cocoa is the main driver of 3.2% of protected forest loss each year.
Significant progress is being made to combat unlawful child labor, but Indonesia’s declining crop and the falling cocoa price remain major challenges, says Mars' head of procurement.
