On their way to sustainability

Lidl‘s commitment to certified chocolate

Posted on 28 September 2011, 22:41

The struggle for sustainable chocolate has been, and still is, a bitter fight. After ten years of unmet commitments in the cocoa sector the 10 campaign was launched on 22^nd September 2011. And, in an unexpected response to this campaign the spokesperson for the cocoa industry, Joanna Scott, admitted on CNN that the industry is not doing enough to end child and forced labour.

Changing times
We at Fairfood experienced a similar unexpected turn of events. We recently heard from Lidl, Europe’s biggest discount supermarket chain, that it has committed to certifying two of its home brand chocolates, Fin Carré and Bellarom. Their brand Bellarom is now 64 percent Rainforest Alliance certified.  And as of this week, their best-selling and most affordable brand Fin Carré will wear the Utz certified seal. It commits to increase its Utz certified chocolate, which started last year, from 10 percent to a 100 percent in 2020.

The Rainforest Alliance’s mission is to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behaviour. And Utz raises the standard of living of a large number of farming communities, by increasing the sustainability of the raw materials.

Both these certifications help abate issues identified in the cocoa sector; like child labour, degradation of natural ecosystems and unfair and unsafe working conditions –  to name a few.

The long road here
At the beginning of our discussions in 2010 this supermarket giant, with almost 7200 stores worldwide, regarded itself as a pioneer amongst its peers in addressing the issues of sustainability in food production; their stores offer a selection of Fairtrade snacks ‘Fairglobe’. While this certainly constituted as a start, it certainly does not win any prizes for being a trailblazer!

Nevertheless, we challenged and encouraged Lidl to expand its sustainability efforts. Changing habits in food sourcing is never easy, but soon after beginning our talks with Lidl, the company began to take several stronger steps towards more sustainability in their food production, building on their existing sustainability efforts and transparency regarding their company’s code of conduct.

Looking ahead
We applaud Lidl for its steps. This will make it the first discount supermarket in Germany that aims to have 100 percent of its home brand cocoa certified. Lidl’s motto ‘On the way to tomorrow’ is forward thinking. We at Fairfood look forward to the next chapter in its sustainability journey and we hope that Lidl’s announcement will pave the way for similar steps among other companies.

Photography: las – initially (CC License)