FERRERO MAKES SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS IN HELPING END DEFORESTATION IN COCOA
Ferrero is proud to announce that it has made significant progress on its action plan to protect and restore forests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana as part of the Cocoa & Forest Initiative (CFI), a partnership between the two governments and companies to drive zero deforestation in the cocoa sector.
“With the Cocoa & Forest Initiative, we are bringing meaningful and lasting change into the cocoa sector. As Ferrero, we are very proud to contribute to this collective initiative, and it is in line with our environmental company policy commitments and values as a family company. Moving forward, Ferrero will continue working to strengthen its sustainable cocoa program with a positive and lasting impact on the cocoa value chain,” says Marco Gonçalves, Chief Procurement and Hazelnut Company Officer at Ferrero.
Ferrero remains ahead of schedule in terms of its CFI initiative
We can confidently say that we are on track and even ahead of schedule to reach our CFI targets in 2022. Over 30% of our CFI indicators are already close to reaching or have even exceeded our defined goals for 2022. This substantial progress was possible due to the trusted partnership we have built with our suppliers over many years as part of our sustainable cocoa initiative. We will even increase the targets needed to continue achieving our ambitious goals.
A strong start means that the CFI initiative continues to gain strength
In the first year alone, Ferrero showed substantial progress, especially on the following indicators:
- More than 140,000 cocoa farms were mapped in Ghana and Ivory Coast.
- In one year, more than 15,000 hectares of cocoa agroforestry were developed in these countries.
- 500,000 multi-purpose trees were distributed to farmers to plant on their farms.
- 90,000 farmers and organisations were trained in Good Agricultural Practices, and over 32,000 farmers were trained in Climate Smart Cocoa*.
Progress in our approach to responsible sourcing, mapping & traceable cocoa
- By the end of 2020, we plan to source all our cocoa from certification and other independently managed sustainability standards.
- By the end of 2020, we aim to have all farmers supplying us with cocoa beans polygon mapped**.
- By the end of 2020, we aim to have all cocoa beans from Ghana and Ivory Coast segregated ***.
Hear the stories from our farmers and partners on our CFI initiative.
CFI progress report for Côte d’Ivoire
* Climate Smart Cocoa: We train farmers to become more resilient to consequences of climate change, such as higher temperatures or other extreme weather events, and how cocoa farming can contribute to mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
** How polygon mapping works and why it is essential: Specially trained people walk around the cocoa farm with technological devices to collect multiple GPS points through which they can very precisely identify the farm's location and measure its size. Based on this information, it is then possible to verify that a farm is not located in a protected forest and to do a more accurate estimate of the total volume a cocoa farmer can produce. This method is more precise than other methods, which collect only a single GPS point of a farm.
*** Segregated, or physically traceable, means that the certified cocoa beans Ferrero sources from its dedicated farmer groups are kept separate from non-certified cocoa beans – from the farms to our plants. This is an essential difference from other sourcing standards, such as “Mass Balance”, whereby certified and non-certified cocoa beans are mixed in the supply chain before reaching the plants producing the end products. By 2019, already 94% of the certified cocoa beans sourced by Ferrero were segregated.
