Answers to frequently asked questions

Cocoa Life is Mondelēz International’s global cocoa sustainability program. Cocoa is the essence of our chocolate and vital to our business, so we need to ensure it is ‘made right’.

Making it right means tackling the complex challenges that cocoa farmers and their communities face, including climate change, gender inequality, poverty and child labor.

Cocoa Life is addressing these challenges holistically across six cocoa-growing countries: Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, India and Brazil. We work on the ground, hand-in-hand with the men and women who make their living from cocoa, focusing on where we can make a difference: turning cocoa into a sustainable business, creating inclusive and empowered communities and conserving and restoring forests.

In doing so, Cocoa Life is growing opportunities for cocoa farmers and their families, by tackling all of these problems together. We are investing $400m over 10 years to empower 200,000 cocoa farmers and improve the lives of more than one million people in cocoa communities.

Currently, ten Mondelēz International chocolate brands are part of Cocoa Life: CADBURY DAIRY MILK, CÔTE D’OR, MILKA, FREIA, DAIM, GREEN & BLACK’S, SUCHARD, MARABOU, LACTA BRAZIL and TOBLERONE. The GREEN & BLACK’S brand covers Cocoa Life cocoa volume for the brand’s velvet range. The LACTA brand in Brazil covers Cocoa Life volume for the LACTA INTENSE range.

By the end of 2025, this will extend to all Mondelēz International chocolate brands. This is an important step for our brands, as it will ensure their cocoa volume is sustainably sourced, while also bringing them closer to their consumers.

As one of the world’s largest cocoa sustainability programs, we can create a positive impact at scale. There are many organizations doing great work in cocoa growing communities – but what differentiates us is that we focus on tackling the root causes of the complex challenges cocoa farmers face, holistically. We don’t fix one problem only to create another.

We have teams on the ground who work hand-in-hand with cocoa farmers and their families to empower them to make cocoa farming a sustainable business. Our teams help build communities so they can take on their own development, while conserving the land and forests.

We also have a network of expert partners, such as supply chain partners, cocoa farming organizations and external advisors, who help us deliver this program and work with governments to help create the right environment for change. For years we have engaged independent third parties to verify our supply chain to understand the impact of our actions, so we can work to continuously improve our program to meet farmers’ needs.

We created Cocoa Life to help grow opportunities for cocoa farmers and communities, consumers and the Mondelēz business by working to achieve the following benefits:

• Cocoa Life registered farmers and their families are better equipped to thrive and improve their livelihoods with the aim of making cocoa a sustainable business, leading to financial security for the farmers and their communities. Learn more about our progress here.
• Communities are empowered to take charge of their own development, increase their income, and respect human rights. Learn more about our progress here.
• Restored and conserved forests benefit the ecosystem and the communities that live within it. Learn more about our progress to protect forests here and here.

• At Mondelēz International our purpose is to empower people to snack right. And snacking made right starts with the sustainable sourcing of our essential raw ingredients – including cocoa through Cocoa Life – to ensure they are made right, with respect to people and planet. Choosing the Cocoa Life logo means everyone can love our chocolate as much as we do, because it’s made the right way, protecting the planet and respecting the human rights of people in our value chain.
• By buying a chocolate bar with the Cocoa Life logo, you can be sure that Cocoa Life farming communities are supported. Learn more about how we manage our cocoa supply here and here.

• Cocoa Life strengthens our global chocolate business by securing a sustainable supply of the most important ingredient for chocolate, and deepens our connection with cocoa-growing countries. By building a more robust supply chain, we can fuel our growth as a business by responding to consumer demand for sustainably sourced cocoa.

At Mondelēz International, we’re on a mission to lead the future of snacking by creating snacks the right way for both people and the planet to love. To us, a sustainable approach is one that balances social, economic, and environmental factors. So when we talk about sustainable sourcing, we are referring to growing cocoa in ways that protects the people that grow it and the planet around us, whilst enabling farmers to prosper.

In action, that means the farmers we work with have been trained to use practices that conserve natural resources, including protecting and restoring forests. It means that farmers and their families are provided with the knowledge and skills needed to build long-lasting, prosperous businesses that support their livelihoods. And it means that we’re working to ensure human rights are respected within these farming communities – from helping to tackle child labor, to empowering women. Finally, we source cocoa from these communities, giving them the opportunity to trade with us on clear terms and to receive benefits such as price premiums and cocoa volumes agreed upfront.

The Cocoa Life logo means everyone can love our chocolate as much as we do, because it’s made the right way, with respect to people and planet. It means Cocoa Life registered cocoa farmers are receiving benefits of our cocoa sustainability program and that the challenges they face - poverty, gender inequality, child labor and climate change - are being addressed.

The Cocoa Life logo itself shows the inside of a cocoa pod. Cut across a cocoa pod and you will see cocoa beans in five sections - as in our logo. The beans in our logo are linked to represent Cocoa Life’s holistic approach.

We work with more than 209,954 farmers who together grow enough (or more) cocoa to make every bar of chocolate with the Cocoa Life logo on pack. We trace this cocoa from the farm until it reaches our cocoa suppliers, who process our beans for us. This means we know that the amount of cocoa we use in our Cocoa Life marked products is grown sustainably and that the farmers we work with are receiving the benefits of our Cocoa Life program.

When Cocoa Life beans reach our cocoa suppliers, the beans are not kept separate from those grown by non-Cocoa Life farmers because this process of keeping the beans segregated is time intensive and costly, and doesn’t benefit Cocoa life registered farmers. That means beans from farmers within the Cocoa Life program will generally be mixed with beans from other farmers while being processed, so not all beans used to make our chocolate will be grown by Cocoa Life registered farmers.

Although non-Cocoa Life beans may get mixed with Cocoa Life beans, brands can only carry the Cocoa Life logo on pack because enough cocoa has been bought from farmers benefiting from the program to meet that brand’s production needs. This is a widely used approach called mass balance.

We believe what matters most is that farmers receive the full benefit of our investment in the Cocoa Life program and are growing cocoa in a sustainable way. So we’ve chosen to invest in our growers, rather than in separating cocoa all the way through to the chocolate bar. The mass balance approach is typical for the cocoa industry and is used by other global chocolate companies and certification organizations.

Cocoa is transported and processed in large quantities, which makes it very expensive and time intensive to keep beans grown by Cocoa Life farmers separate from those grown by other farmers. That’s why we and many other global chocolate companies and certification organizations use mass balance to source cocoa (and some other ingredients) sustainably.

Here’s how it works:

We believe helping to conserve the land and forests where cocoa is grown is a promise to future generations. We were the first company to raise the issue of deforestation in the cocoa sector at COP in Paris and are a founding signatory of the Cocoa & Forests Initiative - a public-private partnership to end deforestation and promote forest restoration and protection.

Our goal is to help end deforestation in cocoa through Cocoa Life by putting farmers and families at the heart of our actions::

• We are helping farmers to grow more cocoa on less land so that they don’t expand into forests. We encourage farming activities that improve farmers’ productivity and ultimately income. We can see agroforestry is a part of the solution: producing the same volume of cocoa from less land will leave farmers room for crop diversification, and stop farm expansion into protected areas
• We train farmers and communities to adopt best agricultural and environmental practices to become more sustainable, efficient and resilient.

We believe understanding where and under which conditions cocoa is produced is critical to tackling deforestation, as is close collaboration with partners, communities and governments to put the right policies and plans in place

Specific actions we have taken include the following initiatives.

• We are mapping Cocoa Life registered farms in an effort to gain a deep understanding of the land needs of farming communities and the boundaries of farms. We use satellites to monitor the mapped farms to ensure they don’t encroach into forests.
• We’ve already supported more than 209,954 farmers by sharing best practice agricultural practices to increase yield and protect the environment and distributed over 4.5 million non-cocoa trees on cocoa farms to provide additional sources of income and shade to help cocoa grow. The distribution of non-cocoa trees is an important part of sustainable cocoa farming: they safeguard cocoa against too much sun and heat, help safeguard biodiversity and can provide additional income for farmers.
• To encourage farmers and communities to adopt best environmental practices such as planting non-cocoa trees to promote diversification, we provide financial incentives to encourage them to become more sustainable, efficient and resilient (payment for environmental services / PES). Our Payment for Environmental Services (PES) pilots are benefiting ~3.000 farmers.
• Our community development programs empower communities to develop their own forest protection and restoration plans, ensuring a sense of ownership on the ground.

For more information visit https://www.cocoalife.org/the-program/climate-change

At Mondelēz International, we are committed to making our snacks the right way. This means helping protect the planet, as well as respecting human rights across our value chain. Our ultimate vision is to help work toward a cocoa sector that is free of child labor, which can only be achieved through collaboration.

Our 2030 goal is to enhance child protection systems and improve access to quality education in Cocoa Life communities. To work towards this end, we support a systems approach, working holistically with communities to help tackle the interconnected challenges that contribute to child labor. To accomplish this, the Cocoa Life program’s strategic approach focuses on three primary areas of response, which mirror UNICEF’s international child protection system strengthening standards:

1. Prevention Efforts – to help prevent and support children at risk of child labor. Our approach seeks to address the underlying causes of child labor, with a particular focus on empowering communities, such as:
   • Encouraging Community Action Plans based on needs assessments identifying community needs and development actions
   • Helping to improve farmer net income from cocoa farming and other sources
   • Helping to improve access to quality education
   • Helping to empower women
2. Monitoring and Remediation – with a focus on monitoring to help identify and remediate cases of child labor and support through the implementation of community-based Child Labor Monitoring & Remediation Systems (CLMRS).
   • Awareness raising activities about issues related to child protection.
   • Community Child Protection Committees (CCPCs) form an integral part of our CLMRS, building the capacity of communities to help identify, support, and protect vulnerable children.
   • CLMRS cover farming families in Cocoa Life communities and focus on the support needed through (i) remediation for children identified as vulnerable and families identified as at risk of child labor and (ii) monitoring, including an assessment of continued access to school.
   • By 2025, we aim to have all Cocoa Life communities in West Africa covered by CLMRS.
3. Helping Enable Systemic Solutions – with a focus on collaboration with others to strengthen the systems that address the underlying root causes of child labor. Working to enable systemic solutions involves strategic partnerships with local and national governments. It also consists of working in collaboration with other industry partners to amplify funding and contributions to structural change, such as improving access to quality education. This includes:
   • Supporting government policy and action
   • Advocacy for international, national, and local initiatives to help improve child protection
   • Engaging all levels of government through partnership, capacity building and system support

Underpinning our strategy is the reality that helping to combat child labor is a shared goal and requires a collaborative process of partnership with governments, suppliers, communities, NGO partners, peer companies and multi-sector partners. That’s why we engage in multi-stakeholder engagement to help improve access to education. For example, we are a part of the Child Learning and Education Facility (CLEF), a collaboration between the Jacobs Foundation, the UBS Optimus Foundation, the Ivorian government, and the broader cocoa sector.

For more information, visit https://www.cocoalife.org/the-program/child-protection

At Cocoa Life, we believe that gender equality benefits everyone, and women’s empowerment has been an important part of the program since we launched. Women are change-makers – encouraging children to stay in school, creating new sources of income for their families, and encouraging environmentally friendly practices. We know that providing women with training, access to farm inputs and finance improves agricultural productivity, builds livelihoods and helps cocoa communities thrive.

Some actions we are taking are:

• Increasing women's access to farm inputs, land ownership and increasing membership of farmer groups or cooperative unions
• Promoting leadership positions for women, ensuring equal representation and providing mentorship
• Ensuring 50% of the young women in communities (age 15+) participate in youth-oriented programming
• Helping women improve their livelihoods through access to finance, and business training

To date, more than 163,749 community members have participated in savings and loan groups to improve their access to finance, of which more than 68.7% are women.

More than 230,000 community members have been trained on gender awareness to help change attitudes regarding the roles of men and women.

For more information visit https://www.cocoalife.org/the-program/womens-empowerment

We publish our progress annually and use FLOCERT (the global certifier for Fairtrade) and Ipsos (a third party research agency) to independently verify and measure our progress and keep us on track.

FLOCERT traces and verifies the flow of cocoa from Cocoa Life communities into the supply chain. It also confirms that our cocoa farmers are receiving the benefits of the program, such as premium payments. Verification provides transparency and enables us to quantify Cocoa Life’s impact on farming communities.

Ipsos works on the ground to measure our program and the impact we have. It looks at 10 key performance indicators – such as cocoa yield and reduction in child labor – to assess whether we’re creating the right change in these areas. We see this step as crucial for understanding the benefits our program creates and helping us to learn where we can improve.

We believe partnerships are key to a holistic approach and lasting change. We work with governments, non-government organizations, supply chain partners and communities to leverage expertise, networks and ensure effective roll-out of Cocoa Life on the ground.

In origin countries, we partner with NGOs like CARE International, Fairtrade, Voluntary Services Oversees (VSO), World Vision, Swisscontact, Solidaridad and Save the Children. All these NGOs have extensive experience and work with cocoa communities to assess their needs and develop the action plans against which we invest through Cocoa Life. We work closely with our cocoa suppliers – the manufacturers who process our cocoa such as Barry Callebaut, Olam and Cargill – who have valuable on-the-ground expertise and existing relationships with cocoa farming communities. We also work with government cocoa authorities at origin to support farmer training, cocoa research, and promote more sustainable practices across the cocoa sector.

For more information visit: https://www.cocoalife.org/the-program/partners

We want to ensure cocoa is ‘made right’, with respect to people and planet. Cocoa Life is investing directly in tackling the root causes of challenges, including climate change, gender inequality, poverty and child labor.

These challenges are complex, and there are no quick or easy solutions, which is why our program takes a holistic approach.

We focus our efforts on the three areas where we can make the most difference: sustainable cocoa farming businesses; empowered cocoa communities; conserved and restored forests. (More here.)

Crucially, we believe that cross-sector collaboration and partnership is key to lasting change. That’s why we work with governments, non-government organizations, supply chain partners and communities to leverage their expertise, networks and ensure that the program is effectively rolled out on the ground.

We are proud of Cocoa Life’s progress and impact in cocoa communities and are committed to continuing our efforts in order to ensure the cocoa volumes for all Mondelēz International’s chocolate brands are sourced from the program by 2025.

We want to ensure cocoa is ‘made right’, with respect to people and planet. Cocoa Life is investing directly in tackling the root causes of challenges, including climate change, gender inequality, poverty and child labor.

These challenges are complex, and there are no quick or easy solutions, which is why our program takes a holistic approach.

We focus our efforts on the three areas where we can make the most difference: sustainable cocoa farming businesses; empowered cocoa communities; conserved and restored forests. (More here.)

Crucially, we believe that cross-sector collaboration and partnership is key to lasting change. That’s why we work with governments, non-government organizations, supply chain partners and communities to leverage their expertise, networks and ensure that the program is effectively rolled out on the ground.

We are proud of Cocoa Life’s progress and impact in cocoa communities and will continue our efforts in order to ensure the cocoa volumes for all Mondelēz International’s chocolate brands are sourced from the program by 2025.