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Introducing the Nestlé sustainable cocoa series

Introducing the Nestle Cocoa Series
Men pealing cocoa beans

Nestlé UK & Ireland has launched a new digital campaign to highlight the key issues, opportunities and challenges associated with sourcing cocoa in today’s rapidly changing world.

The digital sustainable cocoa series campaign will run on the Guardian Sustainable Business Hub for five months from May to September 2016 and will focus on some of the most important issues facing the cocoa supply chain across the globe, things like building more sustainable farming practices and eliminating child labour.

Through 12 feature articles and interactive content, the ‘Nestlé sustainable cocoa series’ will explore the perspectives of people working across the cocoa supply chain, including farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.

This week’s first article looks at the overall challenges facing the cocoa industry and the progress Nestlé and other industry partners are making in tackling them. New features in the series will be added to the Hub every fortnight.

Anna Turrell, Senior Public Affairs Manager for Sustainability, Nestlé UK and Ireland said: 

“By exploring the complex story behind our cocoa sourcing, we hope to shine a light on both the challenges and opportunities faced across today’s global cocoa supply chain, and reinforce the message that long-term industry collaboration is critical in supporting the sustainable development of local farming communities around the world.”  

As the world’s largest food and drink manufacturer, Nestlé takes the sourcing of cocoa for its confectionery products very seriously and recognises its important role and responsibilities in helping to build a sustainable future for cocoa farming.

Nestlé began the year as the first major confectionery company in the UK and Ireland to source 100% certified sustainable cocoa for its entire range of chocolate confectionery and biscuits, and this felt like a timely moment to strengthen awareness of the key issues facing the global cocoa supply chain today.

Nestlé Cocoa Plan

Nestlé sources all its cocoa through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan (link) which aims to actively build a sustainable future for cocoa farming. The Plan focuses on improving the lives of farmers and their communities, and securing the long term supply of high quality cocoa.

Last year Nestlé sourced 118,000 tonnes of sustainable cocoa through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, almost double the amount of 2013. To date, Nestlé has trained thousands of cocoa farmers and distributed millions of high-yielding plants to their farms. It has also built or refurbished 40 schools between 2012 and 2015 in Côte d’Ivoire (West Africa) and created a more transparent supply chain.

This year Nestlé is completing the roll out of its Child Labour Monitoring system across all Nestlé Cocoa Plan farms in Côte d’Ivoire, and is on track to source 150,000 tonnes of sustainable cocoa through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan by 2017.