On February 11th, Chicago Fair Trade held its 2013 members kickoff meeting and fostered meaningful dialogue surrounding the progress being made with sustainability initiatives in the United States and abroad. Chicago Fair Trade supports events throughout the year to bring individuals together to learn about where products come from and how they can support the development of a more sustainable economy, especially
Here at Mars, we are encouraged to see the new changes to the Fairtrade Standard for Cocoa for Small Producer Organizations. At its core, our partnership with Fairtrade International shares the principle of putting farmers first. With regard to cocoa, yield and quality improvement offer significant income-generating opportunities for farmers, while at the same time protecting their livelihoods in the long term.
For too
The annual CAOBISCO conference held in Brussels earlier this year was another opportunity for the industry and others to come together and share ideas and best practices for sustainability going forward. I have the opportunity to share the Mars commitment to cocoa farmers, farming communities, and to industry collaboration, along with Kraft Foods, FairTrade, the International Labor Organization, the European Trade Commissioner, and many
As you may have seen, we announced today that Mars Chocolate met its 2011 benchmark of purchasing 10 percent certified sustainable cocoa – or approximately 30,000 tons – as part of its total supply. In two short years, we have made dramatic progress towards reaching our ultimate goal of purchasing 100% of our cocoa from certified sustainable sources by 2020.
Mars Chocolate has set
Efforts to increase collaboration between cocoa producers, international traders, partner organizations and policy makers took a major step forward during the second annual Africa Fairtrade Conventionin Accra, Ghana on November 23rd through 26th. The convention, which has grown substantially in just a year under the leadership of Fairtrade Africa Chairman Yorokamu Abainenamar and Executive Director Michael Nkonu, provided an opportunity
Last Thursday, SustainAbility published a study to consider the future of certification systems. The study, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, was supported by Mars (along with many other companies) and found:
[…] there is a need to deconstruct and evolve the old model that combines standards, certification and on-pack marks. Instead we urge a shift towards a new model based upon increasingly demanding and pre-competitive
The last two days brought together a huge range of government officials, private companies and civil society groups for the biannual partners meeting of the World Cocoa Foundation in San Francisco. This meeting focused on emerging cocoa origins, and Asia was a focus for many attendees. Particularly interesting was a presentation by Swisscontact’s Manfred Boer on their 21 month, $7 million dollar PEKA Project
