Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli announced last week it has achieved its goal of making its entire Ghana cocoa bean supply chain traceable and verifiable through its focus on farming initiatives.
In 2008, the company launched the four-pillar Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program in Ghana, where more than 48,000 participate. Through the program, farmers are organized into groups to establish traceability systems. Lindt also provides farmers training in best farming and business practices, including crop protection, harvesting, biodiversity and labor rights.
Furthermore, the company offers farmers access to equipment and seedlings and advances community development through rebuildings schools, distributing mosquito nets to combat malaria and constructing wells and boreholes for clean drinking water.
Lindt evaluates progress through an internal monitoring process and an external assessment through The Forest Trust, an organization that visits and evaluates each of Lindt’s farming programs for cocoa beans.
After seeing success in Ghana, Lindt developed similar programs in Ecuador in 2014 and in Madagascar in 2015. The company plans to expand its traceable farmer practices program in South America and the Caribbean in future years.
Lindt hopes to have 95 percent of all its cocoa beans traceable and 90 percent of them traceable and verified by 2017.
