News and our stories GROUP

Great recognition for Barry Callebaut’s Forever Chocolate strategy. Forever Chocolate was shortlisted in the category Sustainable Business Communication of the Year of the Responsible Business Awards.

Fons Maex is the son of a coal miner. Today he is the CEO of Kim’s Chocolates, one of the biggest chocolate producers in Belgium. This is the story about how Kim’s Chocolates is bringing education to 65,000 children in Tanzania – a tribute to Fons’s parents.

Barry Callebaut has joined Bonsucro, the global change platform for sugarcane. Sugar, being a key ingredient in chocolate, plays an important role in our Forever Chocolate sustainability journey towards 100% sustainable ingredients in our products.

With multiple ingredients and a complex manufacturing and processing chain, calculating an accurate carbon footprint for chocolate is not as easy as it may seem. As we work towards becoming a carbon positive business, we’re improving how we measure and understand the carbon footprint of chocolate. This story shows how this is also helping us become a forest positive business.

People all over the world carry some form of responsibility: some towards the American nation and others, towards making the planet great again. For us, it's the duty to “make Asian cocoa great again.”

20 years ago, on this date, Barry Callebaut opened its first chocolate factory in Asia. Our Regional President for Region Asia Pacific, Ben De Schryver, reflects on the meaning of this anniversary for him.

Under its sustainability strategy Forever Chocolate, Barry Callebaut has committed to have 100% of the ingredients in its products coming from sustainable sources as well as zero deforestation in its supply chain. Sustainable palm oil plays an important role in fulfilling both of these objectives.

Today, June 12, is the World Day Against Child Labor. As a company deeply rooted in cocoa origin countries and communities, especially in West Africa, we are still faced with the fact that children are working on cocoa farms, predominantly in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. That is why we committed to eradicating child labor from our supply chain by 2025. Supporting parents in formally registering their children is one element in a portfolio of actions we do.

How to give farmers in remote places better access to supplies of seedlings? An initiative in Tanzania is bringing together cocoa farmers with people from local communities in order to improve the distribution of cocoa seedlings and enhance livelihoods. The program is part of Barry Callebaut’s sustainability strategy ‘Forever Chocolate’ and is driven by its direct sourcing organization Biolands in cooperation with KIM’s Chocolates.

Combining field work and new technology, field facilitators at Barry Callebaut are helping cocoa farmers in Indonesia improve their sustainable farming practices.

Back in September 2015, Barry Callebaut created the Cocoa Horizons Foundation to help shape a sustainable future for cocoa and chocolate. The independent, non profit organization aims to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities through the promotion of sustainable, entrepreneurial farming, improved productivity and community development. The foundation recently published its year-end report highlighting the Cocoa Horizons program achievements from the 2015/16 fiscal year.

A recent study revealed the challenges cocoa farmers face in Côte d’Ivoire. These are manifold, difficult to overcome and stem from the fact that a majority of farmers still live below the national poverty line. We summarized the reports’ insight into an infographic, which also is indicative of the KPI’s we will continue to track in our Cocoa Horizons program.

Barry Callebaut committed to become carbon and forest positive under its Forever Chocolate sustainability strategy. This week, together with other leading chocolate and cocoa companies, we committed to end deforestation - with the support of non-governmental organizations such as the Prince of Wales' International Sustainability Unit (ISU).

Marie is the President of cocoa cooperative, Boukabla, located in Niablé, eastern Côte d'Ivoire. The cooperative made up of almost 200 female farmers, supplies UTZ Certified cocoa to Barry Callebaut.