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The Nestlé Cocoa Plan

What is it?

The Cocoa Plan

In March 2011, Nestlé Canada proudly launched the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, a global cocoa sustainability initiative that is committed to investing $120 million over the next 10 years. The Nestlé Cocoa Plan addresses some of the complex challenges that are facing the cocoa farming communities that Nestlé works with. Among these challenges are the age and condition of the cocoa trees, decreasing yields and insufficient incomes. The aim of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan is to leverage Nestlé’s agricultural and scientific know-how to improve the quality and yield of the cocoa plants. At the same time, Nestlé will be training and educating local farmers and helping them increase their income by improving the quality and productivity of their harvests.

Through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan initiative, Nestlé Canada is sourcing enough cocoa to produce our top selling bars: KIT KAT, COFFEE CRISP, AERO and SMARTIES in both single and multi-pack formats.

The Nestlé Cocoa Plan focuses on five key pillars: farmer education, sustainability, supply chain efficiency, improving social conditions and working with partners:

  • Farmer Education: The Nestlé Cocoa Plan supports Field Schools which help farmers understand how to increase their yields and the quality of their cocoa. Nestlé is committed to buying cocoa from trained farmers and paying a premium for higher quality cocoa. 
  • Sustainability: Nestlé is helping farmers with the introduction of top quality cocoa trees that are disease tolerant and produce higher quality cocoa beans. Nestlé is committed to distributing 12 million cocoa trees over the next 10 years.
  • Supply Chain Efficiency: The existing supply chain model is extremely complex and Nestlé is committed to improving this by working with farmer groups and cooperatives to help them produce export ready cocoa thus eliminating some of the middlemen and ensuring a greater revenue for the local community.
  • Social Conditions: Nestlé is committed to helping to end unacceptable forms of child labour and to this end we are working with the International Cocoa Initiative.
  • Working with Partners: Nestlé is supporting improvements in living conditions in communities by working with different partners depending on the local circumstances. We have partners in the areas of child labour sensitization, water and sanitation, farmer training, trees and certification.

Nestlé partners with Rainforest Alliance, an independent international non-profit organization whose vision is to achieve sustainable supply on this initiative. Rainforest Alliance will work with Nestlé to certify Nestlé Cocoa Plan partner cooperatives.

The Nestlé Cocoa Plan is an example of Creating Shared Value, a fundamental way of how Nestlé does business. For further information, please visit www.thecocoaplan.com.