In February, Kraft Foods and other industry, government and nongovernmental partners joined with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and announced the launch of a comprehensive program that will invest $90m over five years to advance the sustainable production of cocoa and cashews in Africa.
“These are two excellent examples of the progress we’re making in advancing the sustainable sourcing of our agricultural commodities,” said Steve Yucknut, vice president, sustainability. “This is a journey and we still have work to do, but expanding our sourcing of beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and partnering with the Gates Foundation represents significant steps.”
Rainforest Alliance Certification addresses coffee sustainability
In the early 1990s, Kraft Foods began addressing coffee sustainability with the support of public-private partnerships and expanded this strategy in 2003 to include Rainforest Alliance certification.
Kraft Foods’ purchase of nearly thirty thousand metric tons of coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in 2008 not only represents a 50% increase from 2007 but also a twelve-fold increase from 2004.
Over the last five years, the company’s partnership with the Rainforest Alliance has benefited more than three hundred thousand farmers and their dependents on more than sixty thousand hectares of farmland in developing markets.
Importantly, the decision to source from Rainforest Alliance farms has been both a sustainability and business success.
For example, Kraft Foods re-launched several Kenco coffee products in the United Kingdom last year, highlighting Rainforest Alliance certification. Initial consumer impact has been impressive, generating double-digit revenue growth and share growth of 1.2 points in the fourth quarter 2008.
In Sweden, sales of instant and espresso coffee doubled since Kraft Foods began selling coffee with the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal in 2006.
In total, eight of Kraft Foods’ coffee brands in Europe and North America now carry the Rainforest Alliance seal.
In 2005, Kraft Foods expanded the collaboration with the Rainforest Alliance to include cocoa and purchased approximately three thousand metric tons in 2008.
Last year, under its Suchard brand, Kraft Foods became the first European manufacturer of hot chocolate to carry the Rainforest Alliance seal.
Gates Foundation partnership helps boost incomes of African farmers
Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa. One-third of the world’s cashews come from West Africa.
These two industries provide income for millions of smallholder farmers who, like a majority of the world’s poorest people, live in rural areas and rely on agriculture for their food and income.
The projects aim to strengthen the entire agricultural value chain, from seeds and soil to farm management and market access, so that progress against hunger and poverty is sustainable over the long term.
Kraft Foods is the only major branded food company involved in both projects. The projects will be managed by the World Cocoa Foundation and the German development organization Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH.
“By lending support at the farm level and forward, Kraft Foods can help address the cycle of poverty and hunger that undermines the communities from where we source our raw materials,” said Yucknut.
On track to reach aggressive sustainability goals
In addition to the work Kraft Foods is doing with agricultural commodities, it has set some aggressive goals in five key areas that round out its sustainability focus:
Source: Kraft Foods Inc
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