Nestlé tackles cocoa’s bitter legacy

● Nestlé is spending 45-million Swiss francs (R662m) a year on efforts to source cocoa sustainably, the company said, also citing progress in reducing child labour in its West African supply chain.

The company, which has spent about 220-million francs over the past 10 years to tackle child labour and deforestation in cocoa production, said it aims to have 100% sustainable cocoa sourcing in its confectionery products by 2025.

The child labour monitoring and remediation system (CLMRS), part of its sustainably sourcing scheme, currently covers just 57% of the cocoa it sources in West Africa, where child labour is prevalent.

Coverage under the CLMRS does not mean the elimination of child labour, but means that the problem is being addressed or remedied.

“We’re proud Nestlé has made this commitment but it’s a daunting challenge to go from 15% (industry-wide monitoring scheme coverage in the Ivory Coast) to 100% in five years,” said Nick Weatherill, executive director of the International Cocoa Initiative, an organisation working with governments and industry to eliminate child labour.

Blight on its image

”We won’t solve [child labour] just by putting in place a due diligence system. Farmer poverty, access to education and many other issues need to [be addressed]. We need governments on board,” he said.

Chocolate makers like Nestlé, Mars Wrigley and Mondelez are all ramping up their sustainability schemes in a bid to meet consumer demands for ethically sourced products.

But the schemes, which certify cocoa ingredients as ethically sourced, have had little success in tackling widespread child labour and deforestation in West Africa that has become a blight on chocolate’s image worldwide.

According to the Cocoa Barometer, published in 2018 by international civil society groups, there were about 2.1million children working in the West African cocoa sector, a slight increase from five years ago.

Nestlé said its latest report shows progress is possible. In 2018, the company found 18,000 of the 78,580 children it monitored in West Africa were engaged in child labour, but this number was reduced by 55% over the course of the year.

Nestlé currently sources 68% of the cocoa for confectionery from sustainable sourceswhile just under half the cocoa it uses in all its cocoabased products is from sustainable sources.