What Are You Doing About Sustainable Cocoa?
Q: Can Kellogg tell us what they are doing about sustainable cocoa and what is your initiative by 2020?
A: We’re committed to social and environmental sustainability across all of our sourcing initiatives – allowing us to work with partners who share our values, and who are able to deliver high quality and responsibly sourced ingredients. All of our suppliers are required to sign the Kellogg Company Global Supplier Code of Conduct, including our cocoa suppliers. And as global members of the World Cocoa Foundation, we’re working with our suppliers and other food companies to help improve cocoa production, labor practices and climate resiliency.
As part of our Sustainability 2020 commitments, we’re creating opportunities to support on-the-ground projects to help better the lives of women and smallholder growers in the areas from which we source our ingredients. Every cocoa supplier is required to reduce the risks in their supply chain and partner with Kellogg as we work with the industry to improve. We’re also assessing the use of certified cocoa, like Fair Trade USA, to directly invest in grower cooperatives in our supply chain.
In addition, in 2015 Kellogg formed a partnership with ASDA, Cargill and CARE to better understand barriers to women in cocoa farming communities, provide gender-sensitive assistance and enable professional development to women across our supply chain and beyond. As a result of the partnership, the following initiatives have taken place in support of women in cocoa communities:
- Gender sensitization training for Anader agents (Côte d'Ivoire’s national agency for rural development).
- Gender assessment, with help from CARE enabling the industry to gain better understanding into the barriers preventing women from accessing training and development opportunities.
- Female-only training for up to 1,000 women farmers to improve agricultural and business skills, supported by the African Cocoa Initiative, a World Cocoa Foundation led program.
To learn more about our responsible sourcing commitments, along with our other global sustainability plans, please click here.
A farmer in Ghana shows holds a ripe cacao fruit. The seeds or “beans” within the fruit are the main ingredient in chocolate.
