FDBusiness.com

The Barry Callebaut Group, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, and Tony’s Chocolonely, the Amsterdam-based chocolate company committed to bringing an end to slavery in the chocolate industry, have announced a strategic partnership agreement to produce chocolate from fully traceable sustainable cocoa. Barry Callebaut installs a dedicated cocoa butter tank in its factory in Wieze/Belgium to produce cocoa butter from traceable beans sourced from Tony’s Chocolonely’s partner cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. With the cocoa liquor already being produced from beans from their partner cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, all cocoa products in Tony’s Chocolonely’s chocolate will be traceable.

Tony’s Chocolonely has built direct, long-term relationships with the farmers who grow its cocoa, to solve the underlying causes of modern slavery. Employing an industry scalable process, Tony’s Chocolonely works with Barry Callebaut to create traceable bean-to-bar offerings. Barry Callebaut and Tony’s Chocolonely have cooperated since 2005, when Barry Callebaut started to produce their Fairtrade cocoa liquor. As of 2013 Barry Callebaut produced chocolate for Tony’s Chocolonely that included traceable sustainable cocoa liquor. Under the new partnership agreement, also the cocoa butter used in the recipes will become fully traceable, and sourced from Tony’s Chocolonely’s partner cooperatives.

Antoine de Saint-Affrique, CEO of Barry Callebaut, says: “We have a long-standing commitment to sustainable cocoa, working directly with cocoa-growing communities on-the-ground. Having made sustainable cocoa one of the four pillars of our strategy, we champion the development of a fully sustainable chocolate value chain. This partnership with Tony’s Chocolonely is a milestone in our efforts to provide fully sustainable products to our customers.”

Eva Gouwens, First Lady of Chocolate of Tony’s Chocolonely, adds: “It is our mission to make 100% slave free chocolate the norm in the industry. Our sourcing model is based on five principles. We source our cocoa beans directly from our partner cooperatives and follow the beans along the supply chain, we pay a higher price, we have entered into long-term contracts with the farmers, we strengthen their organizations and improve quality and productivity together. We are proud to say that all cocao beans in Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate willbecome fully traceable and come from partner cooperatives we have long-term relationships with. It is possible. So we invite the rest of the industry to join us in making chocolate 100% slave free.”