The Dominican Republic National Chocolate Festival has announced winners of its first chocolate competition, which attracted over 40 entries in three categories: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and experimental chocolate.
Le Conseil du Café Cacao (CCC), Cote d'Ivoire’s cocoa regulatory board, has suspended registering cooperatives’ beans in order to reduce the amount of cocoa stockpiled at ports because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Accessible Soils And Sustainable Environments (ASASE) will be working towards tackling deforestation and working to rehabilitate ageing cocoa farms and restore the country’s natural forests.
Dutch ethical brand Tony’s Chocolonely is inviting international chocolate makers to join its transparent supply chain platform in order to create a more sustainable cocoa industry.
With Veganuary in full swing and more popular than ever, Paul Morris, Luker Chocolate’s UK sales manager, chats to ConfectioneryNews about the 123-year-old family run company and its single origin Cacao Fino de Aroma.
Cargill has confirmed it is laying off 38 workers from its Cocoa & Chocolate plant in Milwaukee after deciding to outsource part of its packaging and shipping operation.
When it comes to cocoa and chocolate, sustainability is taking on increased importance, influencing consumers’ purchase decisions and their perceptions of the brands they buy, new research from Cargill finds.
Barry Callebaut has announced that Francisco Migoya is to become its USA Cacao Barry Ambassador, as the lead chef for cocoa farming sustainability in support of the Cocoa Horizons Foundation.
Increased consumption of flavanols – molecules that are particularly abundant in cocoa beans – can increase your ‘mental agility’, fresh research suggests.
I am a cocoa farmer: Daniel Aboagye, Western Region, Ghana
In the third of her occasional 'I am a cocoa farmer series', cocoa scholar Kristy Leissle talks to Daniel Aboagye, who is not only a farmer but a recorder, or purchasing clerk, for the Kuapa Kokoo licensed cocoa buying company (LBC), so he has...
Milestone highlighted in company’s Forever Chocolate Progress Report 2019-20, marking its progress towards the goal of ‘making sustainable chocolate the norm by 2025’.
Cote d’Ivoire has announced it has lifted its suspension on cocoa sustainability schemes run by Hershey, in the latest twist in the ‘cheap beans’ row that has threatened to jeopardise the delicate relationship between the big chocolate companies and cocoa-growing...
BLC has launched a shea-based premium cocoa butter equivalent. It says the nutritionally balanced ingredient will support food manufacturers to meet consumer demand for health-conscious and sustainable options that don’t compromise on taste and quality.
A star-studded list of ‘serious friends’, including rapper Pharrell Williams and actor Idris Elba, joined the Dutch ethical chocolate brand at a virtual fairground meeting full of razzmatazz and meaning, watched by choco fans around the globe.
Sales of Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa crop are the worst in decades, industry sources say, as COVID-19 drives down global demand for chocolate and the controversial Living Income Differential (LID) increases the price of its, and neighbouring Ghana’s, cocoa...
After two decades of failed interventions across the cocoa sector, cocoa farming communities are still battling the effects of poverty, child labour and deforestation, the new report highlights.
Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have carried out their threat to cancel Hershey’s cocoa sustainability schemes in their countries, accusing the US giant of trying to avoid paying the cocoa Living Income Differential (LID) premium aimed at combating farmer poverty...
Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producing country, has called the move by Hershey to reportedly buy 30,000 tonnes of cheap beans from the ICE New York futures exchange an attempt to derail plans for the Living Income Differential (LID) set up...
New study, published in Scientific Reports, is the first to recognize the cognitive effects of flavanols in young, healthy participants and the link with brain activity.
Hershey has allegedly bought up to 30,000 tonnes of cocoa from futures exchange ICE in a bid to avoid paying the extra Living Income Differential (LID) set up by Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire that includes an added price premium of $400 per tonne on their cocoa,...
Jutta Urpilainen (European Union Commissioner for International Partnerships) delivered a keynote address to the World Cocoa Foundation’s Partnership Meeting mapping out the EC's new multi-stakeholder dialogue to improve sustainability in the cocoa...
‘Fighting Child Labor in Cocoa: Building Partnerships & Scaling Up Action’ was an important session of the first day of the WCF’s 2020 Partnership Meeting, where the ICI’s Nick Weatherill and other panel members attempted to put into context the vexing...
This year’s World Cocoa Foundation Partnership Meeting kicked off online earlier today with a keynote opening address from its President, Richard Scobey.
Cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire are set to earn higher prices for their beans, as ice cream icon Ben & Jerry’s pledges to pay more to provide living incomes for cocoa farmers.
The Fairtrade Foundation has cautiously welcomed the UK government’s new Environment Bill, which includes measures prohibiting UK firms from selling products linked to illegal deforestation overseas.
WCF’s Partnership Meeting will be the only global conference dedicated to cocoa sustainability in 2020 when it convenes online on Wednesday 18 November.
Headquartered in Altrincham, Cheshire in the UK, LoveRaw has a proven track record in developing ground-breaking vegan chocolate products with clean label credentials.
New technology and food science are helping food ingredient manufacturers provide innovative solutions to meet the consumer-fuelled clean-label megatrend. From hunting for the ‘holy grail’ of clean-label bakery mould inhibitors to freeze-drying fruit...
The man behind Australian sugar-free candies firm Sugarless Confectionery Jacques Aubry has detailed how he plans to expand in Singapore, and launch in new markets including Canada and Zambia.
Barry Callebaut Group said sales volumes have bounced back in the final quarter of 2020, showing a recovery of 4.3%, as the company anticipated, earlier in the year.
GCB Cocoa, a Malaysian-owned chocolate company, has announced the acquisition of a former Phillips electronics factory in the UK with a pledge to invest £62.2m and the creation of 220 jobs.
The Cocoa Association of Asia (CAA) has launched its first Cocoa Trading Programme in a bid to attract new recruits into the region’s burgeoning industry.
Mars Wrigley has strengthened its commitment to protecting children in at-risk regions of the cocoa sector with the release of its 2020 Cocoa for Generations report detailing progress on its journey toward creating a modern, inclusive and sustainable...
Three of the top international cocoa companies - Barry-Callebaut, Ritter Sport and Valrhona - have been awarded a sustainability ‘Oscar’ at the Hallbars’ recent ceremony in Sweden.
The Ghana Cocoa Awards has announced a shortlist of 82 nominees for its ceremony, which will take place on Saturday 14 November at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City in Accra.
From humble beginnings as a PR stunt, to becoming the biggest chocolate brand in the Netherlands, Tony’s Chocolonely is moving closer to its goal of disrupting ‘the big seven’ in chocolate. FoodNavigator hears how.
DouxMatok, the Israeli firm behind patented technology that makes sugar taste sweeter, has struck a deal with Canadian sugar refiner Rogers Sugar, parent of Lantic, to manufacture commercial quantities of its ‘enhanced’ sugar, with the first products...
Marc Donaldson, Executive Director of the Cocoa Association of Asia (CAA), follows up from a series of webinars held by the FHA and Saladplate on the outlook for the sector in general with an exclusive interview on how the industry is dealing with the...
Barry Callebaut’s new brand, Cabosse Naturals, has been launched with the aim of addressing consumers’ need for health and wellbeing with a range of ingredients based on using the whole cacao fruit.
The Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa, a multi-stakeholder initiative bringing together Swiss-based chocolate manufacturers, cocoa traders and importers, food retailers, the public sector, non-governmental organizations and research institutes, has...
The prevalence of illegal child labour on cocoa farms in West Africa is effectively the same now as it was five years ago, says Paul Schoenmakers, Head of Impact at Tony’s Chocolonely.
President Richard Scobey recognises research from latest NORC report on child labour in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa regions, but says industry is scaling up its efforts to eradicate farmer poverty.
Following on from the Group’s groundbreaking ceremony in Ecuador for a new state-of-the-art cocoa facility, Barry Callebaut is ramping up its presence in the world’s third largest cocoa-growing country with a wider introduction of its Cocoa Horizons programme....
Cocoa grinding figures across Europe, the indicator of the demand for cocoa for chocolate and confectionery production, declined in the 3rd quarter of 2020 by 4.7% on the same period the previous year, the European Cocoa Organization (ECA) reports.
Long-awaited US government-funded report from National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (NORC) that assesses progress in reducing child labour in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana’s cocoa regions shows figures are lower than previously thought...
The Cocoa Association of Asia (CAA), the leading Cocoa Association in Asia for both cocoa and chocolate companies, is hosting a live forum - Will Cocoa Demand Grind to a Halt? - on October 16, 16:00 Singapore time.
