News and our stories GROUP

Chocolate as nature intended, revealed by chefs: a unique couverture chocolate made from 100% pure cacaofruit

Our cocoa pioneer brand Van Houten is innovating with a powdered chocolate drink made from Ruby chocolate. This cutting edge development in chocolate will be offered to the hospitality sector, specifically baristas and coffee bars. Almost 200 years after its revolutionary invention of the cacao press, our brand Van Houten is taking another step forward and confirming its status as a pioneer.

Originating from the Amazon basin, cocoa’s natural habitat lies under the shade canopies of humid rainforests. Today, most of the world's cocoa comes from small, sun-drenched farms in West Africa. Driven by increasing consumer demand, cocoa farming encroachment into forests and other lands to increase yields, has caused deforestation and habitat degradation. A highly biodiverse cocoa farm has been shown to be drought, disease and pest resilient, and produce higher yields.

There is growing evidence showing a causal relationship between deforestation, the acceleration of climate change, and the extinction of precious flora and fauna. But identifying and measuring deforestation and the cultivation of specific commodities at large scale and in sufficient detail is notoriously difficult.

Deforestation is a major issue in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together produce nearly two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply. Launched In 2017, the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana and leading cocoa and chocolate companies, representing 85% of global cocoa usage, joined together to form the Cocoa & Forests Initiative.

At Barry Callebaut we are also focusing our carbon reduction efforts on emissions that extend beyond our direct operations (scope 3). As a result, for the second consecutive year, we have been recognized by CDP as a Supplier Engagement Leader, placing us in the top 7% of over 5,600 companies assessed in 2020.

Diverse People and Sustainable Growth are at the heart of our people strategy, and this is why the Diversity & Inclusion topic matters so much to us.

We have made great progress on our journey to become carbon positive by 2025. Our carbon reduction efforts in fiscal year 2019/20 have resulted in a -8.1% reduction of our corporate carbon footprint, from 8.5 million tonnes to 7.8 million tonnes CO2e (carbon equivalents).