Leading F&B supplier ofi has unveiled plans to tackle deforestation by achieving seven landscape partnerships and bringing over a million hectares under regenerative agriculture by 2030.

As part of its plan, ofi’s cocoa business is updating some existing targets and introducing new cocoa-related ambitions for 2030. These include ensuring 150,000 farmers in its supplier network earn a living income (it was 60,000 in 2024), all identified child labor cases have received remediation actions, and 100,000 children receive education support.

It also wants to achieve a 30% reduction in GHC Natural capital costs (it stood at 7% this year) against its 2018 baseline and ensure 15 million beneficial trees are distributed for agroforestry programs (the figure was 2 million in 2023).

The company’s announcement coincides with its Cocoa Compass Impact Report 2023, which shares the latest sustainability progress across its cocoa supply chain.

It comes as the cocoa industry continues to battle many complex challenges, such as climate-induced drought, broader biodiversity issues and disease-ravaging cocoa crop yields in key growing regions. These issues have impacted supply chains and farmers’ livelihoods and continue to push up prices globally.

Greater action and urgency 

ofi also revealed highlights since 2018, when its Cocoa Compass baseline was established. These include 8.9 million trees distributed for agroforestry programs, 57,000 hectares of land rehabilitated globally and 970,000 farmers trained in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). 

Andrew Brooks, head of cocoa sustainability at ofi, says: “Greater action and urgency will be needed to address climate change and protect nature and farmer livelihoods in the years to come.”

“Since the launch of Cocoa Compass in 2019, we have now published four years of data and insights from our cocoa sustainability programs, partnerships, and tools, which we are using to raise our regenerative agriculture ambition and focus attention wher we can make the greatest difference, including regenerative farming.”

As part of its regenerative work, ofi has a project with Mars and the German Development Cooperation in Indonesia, wher it is implementing 20 hectares of agroforestry plots to test Sloping Agriculture Land Technology. This technique involves planting cocoa trees in combination with fruit trees, timber and food crops so the root systems bind the soil on the hillsides and help prevent erosion.

Earlier this month, Food Ingredients First sat down with Jeremy Dufour, head of sustainability execution, coffee at ofi, to discuss some of the challenges facing the cocoa and coffee industry.