Barry Callebaut has built a dedicated hub to power cocoa farming research to support cocoa farming resilience and productivity in Ecuador.

Built on SwissDeCode's DNAFoil proprietary technology, and incorporating underlying research from Mars Wrigley, the new solution enables field personnel to quickly test cocoa trees.

Cargill has entered into a multi-year research agreement with AeroFarms, a leader in controlled environment agriculture, aimed at improving cocoa bean yields and developing more climate-resistant agricultural practices.

Nestlé, the Ivory Coast’s government and the nonprofit Earthworm Foundation are partnering to protect the country’s Cavally Forest Reserve and its endangered species from deforestation.

The International Cocoa Initiative has released its 2019 Annual Report, showing progress from last year but also examining the results of longer-running efforts to tackle child labor.

Participating companies have mapped more than one million farms in their direct supply chain and distributed more than 4 million trees to farmers to establish agroforestry systems.

Barry Callebaut has announced that in fiscal year 2018/19 it sourced 51 percent of its ingredients sustainably, up from 44 percent the previous year.

The United Nations Development Programme and the FairChain Foundation have created The Other Bar, a chocolate bar that challenges consumers to take direct action against poverty.

Barry Callebaut Group has launched two varieties of chocolate sweetened with cacaofruit as part of its mission to advance cocoa sustainability and drive innovation in the category.

Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire have suspended pre-sales of the 2020-2021 season cocoa crop as the governments work to institute a base price for cocoa from those countries.