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.

CocoaAction began collecting data and rolling out community development and productivity practices last year. And they’ve made progress, according to the program’s new annual report, but there’s still a long way to go.

In a just released report titled “Chocolate’s Dark Secret,” Mighty Earth, a global environmental campaign organization, claimed that 90 percent of protected national parks in the Ivory Coast have been deforested for growing cocoa while Ghana was undergoing a similar process. 

The World Cocoa Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development have announced a $12-million effort in cocoa production and services as part of the second phase of the foundation’s African Cocoa Initiative (ACI).

Four confectionery and snack giants have partnered with the Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation to improve education and support women and families in cocoa-producing communities of Cote D’Ivoire.

Cocoa producers, researchers, industry executives, government officials, and civil society organizations, gather to participate in these talks. The discussions will explore how chocolate manufacturing is influenced by cocoa quality standards, direct sourcing and the mapping of cocoa flavor characteristics.