Barry Callebaut joins Buyers Supporting VIVE

The VIVE Sustainable Supply Programme is happy to announce the addition of 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. The company sources every fifth cocoa bean grown worldwide, runs more than 60 production facilities globally and operates out of over 40 countries. Sustainability is at the heart of Barry Callebaut. Its Forever Chocolate initiative, launched in 2016, has ambitious targets: to lift more than 500,000 farmers out of poverty, to eradicate child labour from its supply chain, to become carbon and forest positive and have 100% sustainable ingredients in all of its products, all by 2025.

Barry Callebaut reports on an annual basis on the progress of these time bound, measurable targets. The latest progress report shows that the company is scaling and partnering for change, executing innovative projects, supporting farming communities, driving measurable impact on the ground.

By joining Buyers Supporting VIVE (BSV), Barry Callebaut has committed to sustainably source its sugar to 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 Ogorzalek, (Senior Manager, Sustainability Sourcing) 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 ambitions and catalyse a regenerative sugarcane sector. VIVE's unique relationships and continuous improvement process will strengthen our upstream supply chain collaboration."

Ben French, Manager of the VIVE Programme says, “We want to welcome Barry Callebaut to Buyers Supporting VIVE and thank them for 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’s 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 ambitious sustainable sourcing targets.