The event brought together governments, cocoa-growing communities, civil society and companies focused on raising farmer incomes, reducing child and forced labor and reversing deforestation. 

Peter Boone, chief executive officer of Barry Callebaut, has also been named the WCF’s new chairman, the first CEO to hold the chairmanship.

The World Cocoa Foundation has closed pre-event registrations for its 2022 Partnership Meeting due to a surge in demand for its first in-person gathering in three years.

Short, who joined the WCF last year, said he was leaving to pursue other opportunities after having led a strategy review with the foundation’s board.

Companies, governments, donors, farmers and experts will convene at The Hotel in Brussels to discuss balancing traceability with improving farmer livelihoods.

Short is tasked with leading efforts by cocoa and chocolate companies to make the cocoa supply chain sustainable by raising farmer incomes, fighting child labor, and ending deforestation.

The Government of Colombia — along with its two largest cocoa companies, Casa Luker and Compañía Nacional de Chocolates, and the National Cocoa Federation — has committed to eliminate deforestation from the country’s cocoa supply chain by 2020.  

Bill Guyton, incoming president of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association, shares his interest in the role and his vision for FCIA, in addition to discussing the association’s Elevate Chocolate event in New York City, set for June 30.

Those of us who work in and with the industry sometimes forget that the outside world doesn’t necessarily know what we know, particularly when it comes to chocolate.