bake - September/October 2022 - 34

chocolate & decorating
INVESTING IN PROGRESS
Within Barry Callebaut's Farm Services business, the chocolate
company has demonstrated that increased investment into preharvest
labor, particularly for tree pruning, as well as higher investment
in the right mix and amount of soil inputs, can improve
cocoa yields and lead to increased farmer income.
For example, Barry Callebaut found that farmers who increased
pre-harvest labor to on-average 350 hours per hectare
thanks to a pilot project with a customer, experienced higher increases
in yield in 2020/21. In comparison, farmers who invested
on average less than 50 hours per hectare in pre-harvest labor,
showed the lowest yield performance.
Traceability is a cornerstone of Barry Callebaut's Forever
Chocolate commitment to making sustainable chocolate the
norm by 2025. Traceability to farm level, knowing where the cocoa
we source is grown, plays a crucial role in addressing some
of the structural sustainability issues in the cocoa supply chain.
Accurate insights into cocoa sourcing, gathered through polygon
mapping and geo-localization based on satellite images, are
imperative for us in our efforts to eliminate deforestation from
the cocoa supply chain.
However, establishing sector-wide traceability is no easy feat.
According to the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), around half
of world bean supply is sourced indirectly by cocoa and chocolate
companies from independent exporters and traders, mostly
due to the regulatory and licensing requirements in origin countries.
This makes the development of effective traceability systems
a multi-layered undertaking.
Tackling the complexity of the cocoa sector and enabling full
traceability requires multi-stakeholder commitment and action,
connecting origin and consuming countries to cooperate closely
on a broad spectrum of necessary actions. These include precise
34 < SEP-OCT 2022 | bakemag.com
mapping of farms through polygon mapping, data collection on
farmer communities and the setup of human rights and environmental
risk assessments.
Outlining the boundaries of a farm through polygon mapping
helps establish its proximity to forests and potential risks of expansion
into protected areas. Combining this information with
additional data on the farmer, their family and the community
gives a solid picture of what specific farms need to transition
to sustainable agricultural practices. These datasets are a cornerstone
in developing robust risk assessments for environmental
and human rights abuses in compliance with upcoming due
diligence legislation, thus advancing efforts to tackle the main
sustainability challenges in the cocoa sector.
Barry Callebaut has already achieved high levels of traceability
in its direct supply chain. The company is publicly disclosing
the geolocation of its direct suppliers in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana
and Cameroon since 2019. In 2020/21, a total of 240,570 farms
located within 25 kilometers of a protected forest area were
mapped and monitored. This has led to full traceability for cocoa
beans originating from these farms. Overall, Barry Callebaut has
reached 80% traceability to cooperative level and 60% to farm
level. We are confident we will reach full traceability across our
direct supply chain by 2025.
At the same time, Barry Callebaut is focusing on developing
projects that aim to transfer traceability know-how from direct
to indirect supply chain. In 2021, Barry Callebaut has conducted
a pilot program with three key indirect suppliers in Côte d'Ivoire.
This initiative involved training our suppliers to enable precise
and timely data collection. As a result of this program, nearly
35,000 farmers were engaged, with polygon data collected for
over 18,000 farmers representing 20,000 cocoa plots.
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