A Belgian chocolate with a less bitter taste
What could be more pleasant than letting a delicious piece of Belgian chocolate melt in your mouth and savouring it for several minutes? But what's behind a piece of chocolate?
At a time when consumers like to know what goes into the products they consume and how they were produced, Belgian chocolate makers have decided to tackle the issue of the sustainability of chocolate.
2030 objective: for all the chocolate produced and sold in Belgium to be sustainable
What exactly does this mean? In broad terms, there are three priorities. Namely, a fair income for cocoa bean producers, the eradication of child labour in the cocoa industry and an end to large-scale deforestation in producing countries.
The Beyond Chocolate partnership created in 2018 brings together the strengths of producers with those of the Belgian government, mass retail, investors, universities and civil society.
It is a major challenge to ensure a fair income for the 200,000 or so families around the world who make their living from cocoa production, in order to avoid child labour, as children belong in school.
Cocoa production is also still too often synonymous with deforestation, especially in West Africa. The partnership is committed not only to stopping deforestation, but also to restoring forests destroyed due to cocoa production by 2030 at the latest.
By 2030 the aim is for Belgian chocolate to be synonymous with sustainable chocolate.