A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to see Tensie Whelan, president of the Rainforest Alliance, speak at the International Supply Management Congress in Amsterdam. She was one of three keynote speakers at the event, and it was gratifying to hear her discuss in a positive way the work that Mars is doing on cocoa sustainability.
At the Congress, Tensie quoted Mars’s thinking
A few weeks ago, we celebrated the start of export shipments of certified sustainable cocoa butter and cocoa powder from our cocoa bean processing factory in Makassar, South Sulawesi in Indonesia.
It marks a new phase of our sustainability efforts in that country. In addition to expanding our cocoa grinding factory and doubling the size of our office in Makassar, we are also investing
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
A moment to wish the folks at Rainforest Alliance congratulations on the 25th anniversary of their organization, which was feted at a gala held on May 16th in New York City. Having won their “Sustainable Standard Setter” award last year, we were honored to co-chair the event with our supply chain partners ECOM. The gala was held at the Museum of Natural
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 following post is authored by Alastair Child, Mars Global Chocolate Cocoa Sustainability Director.
Today’s announcement of Mars Chocolate’s first Fairtrade product marks an important milestone in our mission to deliver better tools and opportunities to farmers so they can grow more productive crops and build vibrant, sustainable livelihoods.
More than two years in the making, our agreement with Fairtrade International is part of
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
I spent yesterday at the Rainforst Alliance Marketing Sustainability and Certification Workshop in New York and enjoyed their Gala Dinner where Mars was honoured with a Sustainable Standard Setter award by Rainforest Alliance in recognition of commitments and work in sustainability.
Two key themes emerged from the panels and presentations on which our own Global Staff Officer for Plant Science and External Research, Howard
