Mars Launches New Cocoa Sustainability Strategy

Mars Wrigley Confectionery puts smallholder farmers at the center of its ambitious strategy

CHICAGO, Sept. 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Mars Wrigley Confectionery, a maker of chocolate for more than 100 years and one of the world's largest buyers of cocoa, today launched a new plan for overhauling its cocoa supply chain.

Called Cocoa for Generations, the plan places the interest of the smallholder farmer at its center, helps to safeguard children and forests, and creates a pathway for cocoa farmers and cocoa-growing communities to thrive. Cocoa for Generations is backed by an investment of $1 billion over 10 years and is incremental to the Sustainable in a Generation Plan investment Mars announced last year.

"For nearly 40 years we've been working to achieve sustainable cocoa production," said John Ament, Global Vice President – Cocoa, Mars Wrigley Confectionery. "While we've made progress, including reaching nearly 180,000 farmers with sustainability certification, we are impatient with our pace of progress and of the cocoa sector overall. We don't have all the answers but our first step is to put the farmer at the center of our ambitions and actions. We plan to inspire others and work together to ensure Cocoa for Generations."

Despite significant progress, farmers haven't experienced improvements in their incomes or living conditions at an adequate pace. Children continue to labor in hazardous conditions and deforestation continues with farming occurring in protected forest areas. Mars believes a step change is needed where business, civil society and government must think and act differently, and take a new approach that creates a pathway for cocoa farmers, their families, and communities to thrive.

Cocoa for Generations consists of two pillars:
Responsible Cocoa Today
Through its first pillar, Mars aims to have 100 percent of its cocoa from the Responsible Cocoa program responsibly sourced globally and traceable by 2025. Responsible Cocoa means having systems in place to address deforestation, child labor and higher incomes for farmers.

Specifically, Mars expects farms that are part of our Responsible Cocoa program to provide satellite based GPS locations for farms that supply its cocoa so that we have assurances that such cocoa does not come from protected forest areas. Mars will work with suppliers and certifiers to enhance the child labor monitoring and remediation programs (CLMRS) deployed in its Responsible Cocoa supply chain, and continue to help improve education in cocoa-growing communities, with a focus on access to and quality of schools.