Sustainability

When you have a delicious meal, you send compliments to the chef, right? Right! So similarly, when you enjoy that signature choco-malt and milky taste of MILO^®, our farmers are to thank for that world-class taste from the quality home-grown ingredients they provide!

However, it’s not all rosy. Farmers in West Africa endure so much to produce those quality ingredients. The cocoa supply chain faces many challenges ranging from low productivity (yields) to gender inequalities. So, to make life better for our farmers here in West Africa, Nestlé has launched the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, that improves these conditions for generations and generations to come! Now that’s sustainability!

By taking a critical look at the issues at hand, the plan provides solutions to the low productivity (yields) and knowledge-based struggles that our farmers experience. But it's more than just a farmer’s program; it's a family program. It enables cocoa-farming families to benefit in three areas:

• Better farming practices: By introducing good agricultural practices such as pruning and planting shade trees, farmers can achieve higher yields that translate into higher income. Cocoa-farming families achieved a 32% increase in their yields after implementing improved practices and their net income rose by 38% in Ivory Coast!
• Women empowerment and eliminating child labour: Many of the farmers rely on labour from their immediate family members to tend their farms. This results in numerous cases of children at risk. But now, through the Nestle Cocoa Plan, all households are profiled through our Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) to locate children in farming households at risk of child labour and remediation support is provided. The program also empowers women with access to finance and financial inclusion trainings through the Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) where they save and lend amongst themselves to invest in their individual businesses and not depend solely on cocoa.
• Better cocoa certifications, deforestation and building long-term relationships in our supply chain: Nestlé procures our cocoa ingredients from farms that are polygon mapped and are located outside protected areas and forest reserves. This makes our cocoa supply chain deforestation-free and fully traceable. While implementing the program, Nestle has distributed over 200, 000 forest and fruit trees to farmers to mitigate climate change risk.

With all these measures in place, the lives of many cocoa farming families in West Africa are being transformed for the better! Not only are we saving the environment through sustainable farming practices, but we are empowering the future generations too! Follow the Nestlé Cocoa Plan for more interesting updates! (Sustainable Cocoa | Cocoa Cultivation | Nestlé Cocoa Plan (nestlecocoaplan.com))