London, UK

Olam Cocoa, a leading supplier of cocoa beans and ingredients, today announces it has achieved 100% traceability of directly sourced cocoa across its global supply chain, a commitment first stated five years ago. This means the company can now track approximately 12% of the world’s cocoa beans back to an individual farm or community.

This breakthrough is the first significant milestone for Cocoa Compass, Olam Cocoa’s sustainability ambition for the future of cocoa. In a progress update published today, the company confirmed it is on track to meet its targets. These include a commitment to achieving 100% deforestation and child labour monitoring across all managed sustainability programmes worldwide in its direct supply chain by the end of 2020.

To achieve 100% traceability of its directly sourced cocoa, Olam Cocoa has developed an end-to-end traceability system which tracks the cocoa at every stage in the direct supply chain across nine countries1. By collecting data such as farm and community metrics, cocoa bean purchasing and transportation information, and details on the facility where the cocoa was processed, it can provide unprecedented transparency for customers and allow sustainability programmes targeted at tackling child labour and deforestation to be tailored to the specific needs of farmers and cocoa-growing communities.

This builds on insights from existing tools, namely the Olam & Farmer Information System (OFIS), which feeds through to Olam’s sustainability insights platform, AtSource. A dashboard shows where the cocoa beans have come from, as well as the social and environmental impact they have had on their journey from source to manufacturer. Over 325,000 cocoa farmers across Asia, Africa and South America are now using Olam’s sustainability technology to share their data in this way.