Mondelēz International will extend its Cocoa Life sustainability programme to all Cadbury-branded products available in the UK and Ireland, thanks to a new partnership with the Fairtrade Foundation.
The commitment will help Cocoa Life to reach more families and support more cocoa-growing communities in the developing world, Mondelēz said. This involves an increase in the quantity of sustainably sourced cocoa that Cadbury buys from farmers, equivalent to five times the amount currently bought by Cadbury for its products in the UK.
Cocoa Life will also make a $400 million investment by 2022, empowering 200,000 farmers and reaching 1 million people in communities in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, India and Brazil.
The roll-out will be phased in from May 2017, and will take effect fully ‘by 2019’.
Glenn Caton, president of Northern Europe for Mondelēz International, said: “Cocoa Life builds from Cadbury’s proud heritage of sourcing cocoa sustainably, which dates back to 100 years ago when the Cadbury family helped establish cocoa farming in Ghana.
“Through Cocoa Life, we want to become an accountable partner for our cocoa farmers, not just a buyer. We are directly connecting buyers to farmers, enabling them to build long-term businesses. Cocoa Life truly transforms communities by delivering real and measurable improvements for cocoa farmers. We want to use our scale as the world’s largest chocolate maker to drive positive change for the communities on which we depend. We support Fairtrade’s vision to drive sustainable livelihoods through empowered farming organisations and communities and fairer terms of trade. We are proud to have Fairtrade’s support in helping us achieve this.”
Launched in Ghana in 2008 as the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, Cocoa Life has already been rolled out across more than 795 cocoa farming communities around the world and independent verification shows that farmers in the Cocoa Life programme in Ghana have seen their incomes increase at a rate almost 50% higher than if they went it alone.
Fairtrade Foundation chief executive Michael Gidney said: “We are proud to have worked closely with Cadbury since 2009 to improve the lives of cocoa farmers and their communities. But the reality is that life for too many cocoa farmers remains a daily struggle against poverty, whilst their communities still lack many essential services and climate change poses increasing threats to their livelihoods and future.
“The evolution of our partnership with Cadbury and Cocoa Life is an exciting development as it embeds Fairtrade, our values, principles and unique relationships with farmer networks into the whole programme. In doing so, together we can increase the scale and impact of Cocoa Life, towards a common goal – one in which cocoa farmers, their organisations and communities are empowered, can invest in their own futures, and go from just surviving to thriving.”
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