This, it says, is a key tool for the group to reach its Forever Chocolate commitment to make sustainable chocolate the norm by 2025.

This commitment also includes a target to source 100% of the group’s ingredients sustainably by 2025.

Barry Callebaut says it has prioritized the establishment of traceability in its Ghanaian and Ivorian supply chains, the world’s two largest cocoa producers. Under the Cocoa and Forests Initiative (CFI), a multi-stakeholder initiative dedicated to ending cocoa farming induced deforestation in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, Barry Callebaut committed to deliver 100% traceability in its supply chains in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. In line with this commitment, the group has mapped 100% of the farms and warehouses in its direct supply chain at risk of sourcing from protected forest areas.

This means that Barry Callebaut has mapped all cocoa farms within 5 km from a protected forest area and all cocoa warehouses within 25km from a protected forest area. By the end of 2019, Barry Callebaut says it will have mapped all the farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana it sources from, establishing 100% traceability for its direct supply chain in the world’s two largest cocoa producing countries. Overall, this means that 100% of the cocoa volume sourced in Ghana and 40% of the cocoa volume sourced in Côte d’Ivoire, by Barry Callebaut, is traceable.

In order to achieve 100% traceability in the cocoa supply chain, an enabling environment of government mandated traceability is required, the company notes. For example, the Ghanaian government has mandated the traceability of cocoa, which means that 100% of the cocoa volume Barry Callebaut sources in Ghana is traceable to community level.