Cocoa prices on the global market fluctuate greatly and cocoa cultivation is often harmful to the environment. Sometimes, cocoa farmers cannot even completely cover their production costs with the income from their harvest. We are therefore committed to fair and sustainable cocoa production.
Fairtrade cocoa means greater financial stability for small-scale farmers and more self-determination in the democratically structured cooperatives. Thanks to the fairtrade premiums, investments can be made in the education and healthcare infrastructure or in improving cultivation conditions – which is reason enough for us to rely on Fairtrade Max Havelaar cocoa.
At present, 76.2 percent of our own-label chocolate bars are fairtrade and we have switched to fairtrade cocoa for popular products such as chocolate croissants. This is partly enabled by the fact that our production company HALBA works directly with fairtrade cooperatives in Peru, Ecuador, Honduras and Ghana.
We are the first Swiss company to gradually introduce the expanded Fairtrade labels as of May 2018. The «Fairtrade Sourced Ingredient» product label means that individual ingredients grown and traded in line with fair trade principles can also be certified. The «Fairtrade Sourcing Programs» that used to apply to cocoa, sugar and cotton are now available for all raw materials, except coffee and bananas. Thanks to these fairtrade ingredients, farmers and workers in the southern hemisphere can sell more under fairtrade conditions and consumers have access to a wider fairtrade range. The stringent Fairtrade standards remain unchanged.
Working closely with our subsidiary HALBA, we are committed to sustainable cocoa from Honduras. In this project, the cocoa is grown according to ecological and social criteria. These include measures to protect the rainforest. Furthermore, the project relies on organic cultivation methods, which impact positively on diversity.
Deciduous trees are also planted on the plantations. These protect the cocoa plants and also enable an additional, long-term income from selling the wood, to cushion fluctuations in the productivity of the cocoa plants. Training, the creation of an infrastructure for downstream processing steps and long-term, fair commercial relationships ensure better living conditions for the local cocoa farmers. The chocolate from this project, which is certified by Bio Suisse and Fairtrade Max Havelaar, has been available under Coop Naturaplan since 2013.