News

Cadbury extends Cocoa Life commitment

24 Nov 2016

Cadbury and Fairtrade have announced what they describe as a ground-breaking commitment to help more cocoa farmers, their families and their communities, by extending the Cocoa Life programme to all Cadbury products.

Cadbury and Fairtrade have announced what they describe as a ground-breaking commitment to help more cocoa farmers, their families and their communities, by extending the Cocoa Life programme to all Cadbury products in the UK and Ireland by 2019. Starting in May next year with a phased roll-out, for the first time ever, all Cadbury products in the UK and Ireland will be covered by a single sustainable sourcing programme - Cocoa Life.

Fairtrade, the world's largest and most recognised fair trade system, will become a partner for the whole Cocoa Life programme, working together to secure the long-term future of cocoa farming communities. By 2019, all Cadbury chocolate in the UK and Ireland will display the Cocoa Life branding, symbolising the adoption of the programme across the Cadbury range. As a result, the selected Cadbury Dairy Milk products that were previously Fairtrade certified will no longer carry the Fairtrade mark.

The new partnership between Cocoa Life and Fairtrade, which builds on a relationship established in 2009, will be indicated on the back of pack. Cadbury and Fairtrade will now work together on new programmes to enhance the future for farming communities, such as building resilience to climate change – which cocoa farmers say is already a key threat to their livelihoods. In addition, Fairtrade will work with Cocoa Life to develop farmer organisations and, together, enhance the understanding and reporting of the programme’s impact on cocoa farmers, their families and their communities.

FLOCERT, which also works as Fairtrade’s independent assurance and certification body, will continue to independently verify the supply chain of Cocoa Life as the programme grows. This involves tracking the quantity of sustainably grown and traded cocoa and the loyalty payments made to farmer organizations.

“Cocoa Life builds from Cadbury’s proud heritage of sourcing cocoa sustainably, which dates back to a hundred years ago when the Cadbury family helped establish cocoa farming in Ghana,” said Glenn Caton, President, Northern Europe at Mondelēz International. “Through Cocoa Life, we want to become an accountable partner for our cocoa farmers, not just a buyer. We are directly connecting buyers to farmers, enabling them to build long-term businesses. Cocoa Life truly transforms communities by delivering real and measurable improvements for cocoa farmers. We want to use our scale as the world’s largest chocolate maker to drive positive change for the communities on which we depend. We support Fairtrade’s vision to drive sustainable livelihoods through empowered farming organisations and communities and fairer terms of trade. We are proud to have Fairtrade’s support in helping us achieve this.”

Launched in Ghana in 2008 as the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, Cocoa Life has already been rolled out across more than 795 cocoa farming communities around the world and independent verification shows that farmers’ in the Cocoa Life programme in Ghana have seen their incomes increase 49% more than farms outside the programme.

“We are proud to have worked closely with Cadbury since 2009 to improve the lives of cocoa farmers and their communities,” said Michael Gidney, Chief Executive at the Fairtrade Foundation. “But the reality is that life for too many cocoa farmers remains a daily struggle against poverty, whilst their communities still lack many essential services and climate change poses increasing threats to their livelihoods and future.”

“The evolution of our partnership with Cadbury and Cocoa Life is an exciting development as it embeds Fairtrade, our values, principles and unique relationships with farmer networks into the whole programme. In doing so, together we can increase the scale and impact of Cocoa Life, towards a common goal – one in which cocoa farmers, their organisations and communities are empowered, can invest in their own futures, and go from just surviving, to thriving.”