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Barry Callebaut joins Buyers Supporting VIVE

The VIVE Sustainable Supply Programme is delighted to welcome Barry Callebaut to its Buyers Supporting VIVE Programme, through which it commits to and supports the sustainable sourcing of sugar in its supply chains.

Barry Callebaut is a world leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products which runs more than 60 production facilities worldwide and operates out of over 40 countries. The company produces 2.2 million tonnes of chocolate products globally and has demonstrated its commitment to sustainability through its ‘Forever Chocolate’ sustainability initiative, which works with over 200,000 cocoa farmers in West Africa to reduce land use change, child labour, poverty, and carbon intensity per tonne of product. Currently, 43% of Barry Callebaut products contain 100% sustainably sourced cocoa. The company have set ambitious targets for 2025 and aim to increase the volumes of sustainable product substantially.  They have taken large strides to do this and have already reported several achievements including getting carbon intensity per tonne of product down to -17%, lifting 500,000 farmers out of poverty, bringing 25,486 cases of child labour into remediation and reducing land use change to 10%.

By joining Buyers Supporting VIVE (BSV), Barry Callebaut has committed to sustainably source its sugar and support the move to more sustainable supply chains. Barry Callebaut will have assistance in enhancing their sugar sustainability journey as VIVE will connect them with a wide network of verified sustainable sugar producers. The programme gives end-buyers access to an expanding network of sustainable supply chain options and helps to enhance transparency across their whole supply chain, which helps to enhance brand protection.

Kevin Ogorzanek at Barry Callebaut says, “Barry Callebaut is delighted to add VIVE to our suite of sustainable cane sugar verification schemes with which we work to achieve our Forever Chocolate Goals and catalyse a regenerative sugarcane sector. VIVE’s unique relationships and continuous improvement process will strengthen our upstream supply chain collaboration in key supply chains.”

Ben French, Manager of the VIVE Programme says, “We are delighted to welcome Barry Callebaut to Buyers Supporting VIVE and thank them or their commitment to supporting sustainable sugar sourcing. Through Buyers Supporting VIVE organisations that operate upstream in buyers’ supply chains are able to create a pull-through effect, providing an incentive for sustainable action.”

VIVE is a sustainable supply chain programme, which aims to continuously improve the sustainability of its participants supply chains while also ensuring commercial advantage. The programme focuses on driving this continuous improvement at every stage of the supply chain, from producer to end-user. It helps producers to improve their practices and make them more sustainable, while also helping larger, end-user companies to meet their sustainability targets and further promote sustainability. VIVE is run by supply chain company Czarnikow (CZ) and agricultural assessment experts Intellync. Together, the two companies allow VIVE to combine commercial awareness with sustainable expertise to ensure that all participants achieve their sustainability goals and continue to improve beyond them.

Barry Callebaut has now joined a large network of other companies who also support the BSV programme including many of the world large Food and Beverage multinational as well as regional buyers of sustainable agricultural products. We very much look forward to working with Barry Callebaut to achieve their aggressive sustainable sourcing targets.