• Journey toward enabling a living income for cocoa farmers: a total of 557,739 cocoa farmers in our supply chain are now above the poverty line.
• We mapped over 1.5 million cocoa farms as of 2025, achieving the level of traceability required for EUDR and setting a new benchmark for transparency and accountability in our supply chain.
• We launched an assisted natural regeneration (ANR) pilot in Côte d’Ivoire with RISOME and CIRAD, covering 1,200 hectares and 600 farmers.
• Carbon removals increased (-457,592 tCO₂e), driven by the expansion of our agroforestry approach
• Under our Human Rights pillar, we continued our Community Systems Strengthening model in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria to foster protective environments for children by addressing the root causes of child protection issues.
• In parallel, we continued remediating identified child labor cases, with 51,420 child labor cases under remediation.
• We've refined our approach to sustainable sourcing by focusing on the ingredients where we have the greatest influence. Instead of covering all ingredients, we now concentrate on eight key raw materials - cocoa, sugar, dairy, palm, coconut, soy, vanilla, and hazelnuts - which together account for 97% of our total raw material volume. Based on this new methodology, in 2024/25, 55.8% of the cocoa and chocolate products we sold contained certified or verified cocoa.

In May 2023, we presented a set of sharpened targets for Forever Chocolate. We have not only sharpened our targets but also fundamentally rethought our approach in order to achieve the biggest impact. Our approach combines ambitious targets, thought leadership, customer solutions, and operational excellence.

• With regard to thought leadership, we are committed to leading by example and providing valuable insights through, for example, the release of our White Paper which underpins our vision for a transformative approach to improve the existing cocoa farming model in Côte d'Ivoire and, more broadly, across West Africa.
• Concerning customer solutions, our customers are our priority and we have developed key flagship programs that provide innovative solutions tailored to their needs.
• As to operational excellence, this is driven by our over 1,600 colleagues in cocoa-origin countries, who form the backbone of our organization, contributing their expertise, skills, and unique perspectives. As the largest supplier of sustainable cocoa products and chocolate, we strive to excel in every aspect of our operations across the entire supply chain and have the ability to scale up on key activities with precision.

By 2025, 500,000 cocoa farmers in our supply chain will have been lifted out of poverty. By 2030, we will have mobilized key stakeholders around a transformative cocoa farming model generating living income.

Our approach

Prospering Farmers is one of the four strategic pillars of our Forever Chocolate strategy. Our work on this pillar is guided by two interconnected targets: By 2025, 500,000 cocoa farmers in our supply chain will have been lifted out of poverty. By 2030, we will have mobilized key stakeholders around a transformative cocoa farming model that generates a living income.

To support this 2030 ambition, we have introduced the concept of the “North Star” - a country-specific framework that defines the pathway toward a modern, high-yielding, deforestation-free, climate-resilient and community-based cocoa sector. We have developed North Star strategies for Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Ecuador and Indonesia. These frameworks reflect our belief that sustainability alone is not enough. Achieving lasting impact requires a combination of targeted interventions through sustainability programs and an enabling policy environment, compelling narratives that drive change, and the right level of investment.

In 2024/25, despite climate-related challenges and a 30% increase in the poverty benchmark, we reached our goal of enabling 500,000 cocoa farmers to move out of poverty by 2025 - a milestone that reflects the scale and impact of our field-level programs and partnerships. However, this is just the first step. Looking ahead to 2030, we are committed to continue our work to scale a transformative cocoa farming model that supports a living income. 

To achieve our 2030 vision, we aim to unlock productivity by increasing farm-level investment, focusing on pre-harvest labor, and climate resilience practices. This will be supported by advocacy for enabling policy reforms to ensure farmers can achieve a living income.
Our refreshed Prospering Farmers strategy builds on four interconnected focus areas that complement and strengthen our existing approach: agroforestry, soil management, integrated pest and disease management, and investment in cocoa planting material. These components reinforce our agricultural approach and help build a more resilient and prosperous farming model.

By 2025, our entire supply chain will be covered by Human Rights Due Diligence, remediating all child labor cases identified. By 2030, the farming communities we source from are empowered to protect child rights.

Our approach

Human Rights is one of the four strategic pillars of our Forever Chocolate strategy. Our approach for this pillar follows two interconnected targets: By 2025, our entire supply chain will be covered by Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD), with all identified cases of child labor remediated. By 2030, the farming communities we source from will be empowered to protect children’s rights. The following sections outline how we are putting these commitments into practice.

Our actions go beyond detecting child labor: we aim to strengthen and connect with child protection systems, empower communities and promote local ownership and child participation. 

We believe enforcement of a strong regulatory framework to prevent, mitigate and respond to human rights abuse and violations in origin countries should be part of a broader effort to strengthen an enabling environment for sustainable farming. 

Barry Callebaut’s HRDD approach is guided by local, national and international laws and standards, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct (OECD Guidelines), the UNGPs, the OECD Business Handbook on Due Diligence in the Cocoa Sector, the Children’s Rights and Business Principles by UNICEF, and the UN Global Compact. We adhere to the principles of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Core Conventions and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In 2024/25, we continued to strengthen and operationalize our HRDD system aligned with the OECD Guidelines and the International Cocoa Initiative's (ICI) six key elements, while upholding safeguarding principles.
We follow the OECD’s six-step framework, which provides a structured process for identifying, preventing and addressing human rights risks across our value chain.

By 2025, we will be forest positive. By 2030, we will have decarbonized our footprint in line with global efforts to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. By 2050, we will be a net zero company. 

Our approach

Thriving Nature is one of the four strategic pillars of our Forever Chocolate strategy. Our approach for this pillar is guided by two interconnected targets: Becoming forest positive by 2025 and decarbonizing our value chain emissions aligned with a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway. The following sections outline how we are implementing these targets in practice.

We fully support the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) as we believe that binding regulation is essential to driving systemic change on deforestation. Since the outset, we have actively supported this legislation, guided by our responsibility towards all supply chain stakeholders - from farmers to customers - to help halt deforestation, promote sustainable and traceable farming practices, and protect forests.

Becoming forest positive by 2025

Our forest positive ambition includes farm-level traceability, rigorous due diligence, and forest protection across our supply chains. This approach is supported by the requirements set forth in the EUDR, for which we are well-prepared - equipped with geolocation data, digital traceability tools, and strong supplier systems. Our ambition also includes investing in targeted forest protection initiatives across key cocoa- and palm-producing landscapes, setting a new standard for responsible sourcing and environmental stewardship. Today, we can already demonstrate that:
Within the scope of the EUDR, and for volumes sourced to supply our facilities in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, we have achieved 100% deforestation-free sourcing. Additionally, we have mapped over 1.5 million cocoa farms as of 2024/25.

Beyond this scope, we implement extensive due diligence - conducting country risk assessments across all sourcing regions and investing in forest protection in high-risk landscapes. These efforts are directly connected to our broader 2030 traceability and sustainable ingredients roadmap.
This comprehensive approach ensures that our near-term compliance with EUDR is embedded in a longer-term strategy that is geared towards scaling due diligence and traceability globally.

By 2030, we will have 100% certified or verified cocoa and ingredients in all of our products, traceable to farm level.

Our approach

Sustainable Ingredients is one of the four strategic pillars of our Forever Chocolate strategy. Our target for this pillar is clear: By 2030, 100% of our cocoa and other ingredients will be certified or verified and traceable to farm level. The following sections set out how we are advancing towards full traceability and sourcing only sustainable ingredients.

In line with our Forever Chocolate strategy, we refined our focus in 2025 to concentrate on eight key ingredients: cocoa, sugar (beet and cane), dairy, palm and palm kernel oil, coconut, soy, vanilla and hazelnut - together representing 97% of our total ingredient volume. The chart in our Annual Social and Environmental Impact Report illustrates how the eight key ingredients were selected using a prioritization matrix with the Y axis represented by the underlying social, political and environmental risk as per Maplecroft Index. The X axis represents how relevant the ingredient is for the business in terms of volume, recipe impact and customer awareness. Business relevance and Maplecroft risk led to a final score per ingredient and the final selection of the key ingredients. This prioritization allows us to concentrate efforts where we can deliver the greatest impact. 

In addition, this year, we also shifted towards only physical sustainable raw material volumes to allow for better alignment with traceability and human rights criteria. This approach also means working more closely with our suppliers.
To reach our 2030 target, we apply a multi-level approach that combines supplier engagement, on-the-ground interventions and industry collaboration. We work closely with suppliers to implement sustainability projects while actively participating in platforms, working groups and standard-setting bodies to drive collective action and systemic change.

Since 2016, we have been collecting a large number of key performance indicators (KPIs) that not only track the key approach and progress of our Forever Chocolate program but also cover Barry Callebaut’s material topics, as defined by our stakeholders. 

Interested in our Forever Chocolate progress over the years? Check out our data sheet showing key KPIs from 2018/19 until 2024/25.

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