COCOA CHARTER AND ACTION PLAN

Ferrero published its Cocoa Charter and Action Plan, which outline the company's ongoing commitment to creating a sustainable cocoa industry that benefits both people and nature. The Charter and Action Plan reaffirm Ferrero’s long-standing support for income generation for farmers, protecting children and developing communities, and promoting sustainable agroforestry.

Ferrero’s Cocoa Charter and Action Plan are built upon achieving 100% sustainably sourced cocoa through third-party programs, ensuring sustainability, and achieving 96% traceability down to the farm level. Furthermore, the company commits to action to further address deforestation, child labour, and sustainable livelihoods.

“The Cocoa Charter and Action Plan underline Ferrero’s ambition to be a driving force behind a cocoa sector where cocoa production creates value for people and the environment. Through our distinct sourcing approach, we know the farmers and communities we source from, and this enables us to support them in a targeted way. We are now strengthening our activities to bring about lasting change for the sector.” - Marco Gonçalves, Chief Procurement & Hazelnut Company Officer.

Since beginning its efforts towards responsibly sourced cocoa in 2005, Ferrero has taken steps such as :

Joining the World Cocoa Foundation
Subsequently, joining the International Cocoa Initiative
Today Ferrero’s cocoa is 100% sustainably sourced via independently managed standards such as Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and others.
As Ferrero is sourcing cocoa almost entirely from known farmer groups, it is also performing very strongly on both traceability and supply chain visibility. Already today, Ferrero’s cocoa supply chain is 96% traceable to farm level.

In publishing the Cocoa Charter, Ferrero recognises that the cocoa supply chain’s issues are complex and must be addressed by partnering with farmers, industry, communities, NGOs and governments.

The ambitions outlined in the Cocoa charter are grouped under four pillars, namely:

Sustainable Livelihoods - provide targeted support to farmers to improve productivity and diversify income.
Human Rights and Social Practices - protect the rights of children in cocoa-growing communities
Environmental Protection - supporting farmers to convert to agroforestry systems
Transparency - supply-chain traceability, risk assessments and progress disclosure Ferrero’s Cocoa Action Plan outlines how the company will work towards these ambitions.

Initiatives already in place include:

Farm Development Plans and Income-Generating Activities - paying a cash premium to farmers on top of the commercial price to support cocoa farmers to prosper.

Partnerships to implement Child Protection Systems and Community Development Plans to address child labour - Working with the Cocoa and Forests Initiative (CFI) to end deforestation in the cocoa sector and promote sustainable agroforestry.
Strengthening supplier partnerships - building a platform that gives visibility over Ferrero’s entire supply chain.

A report will be published each year on the progress made against the Action Plan. The first progress report is expected to be published in Q2 2022.

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