“The complete takeover of Biolands brings Barry Callebaut even closer to thousands of farmers committed to sustainable cocoa production”
Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high quality chocolate and cocoa products, acquired the remaining 51% of Biolands Group, its long-time supplier of certified cocoa beans from East and West Africa.
Barry Callebaut has been purchasing Biolands’ top-grade cocoa since 2000 and it acquired a 49% stake in Tanzanian-based Biolands International in 2008. Since then, the model has been replicated in Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire through the establishment of Bio-United and Biopartenaire. This month the company acquired the remaining 51% of the Biolands Group, resulting in 143 full-time employees now set to join the Barry Callebaut Group.
“The complete takeover of Biolands brings Barry Callebaut even closer to thousands of farmers committed to sustainable cocoa production,” said Daudi Lelijveld, Vice President Sustainable Cocoa. “Biolands has championed quality cocoa, transparent pricing and fair business practices since it first started working with cocoa farmers in Tanzania more than 13 years ago. We look forward to accelerating ourwork together with farmers to identify pragmatic and scalable solutions to address the gaps in knowledge, materials and financing which limit the ability of farmers throughout Africa to realize productivity gains and improve livelihoods.”
The Biolands acquisition fits well with Barry Callebaut’s overall corporate strategy to become a leader in sustainable cocoa, and gain access to individual farmers in addition to cooperatives. In March 2012, Barry Callebaut launched “Cocoa Horizons”, a CHF 40 million cocoa sustainability
initiative to boost farm productivity, increase quality and improve family livelihoods in key cocoa producing countries in Africa and Asia over the next 10 years. The Initiative builds upon Barry Callebaut’s own Quality Partner Program (QPP).
Biolands is one of the largest certified organic smallholder cocoa programs in the world. Launched in Tanzania in 1999, Biolands has applied a bottom-up co-operation model, working directly with small holder farmers to ensure fair prices are paid, improve the quality of cocoa and the farmers’ quality of life. Biolands also supports local cocoa communities. Since starting training and providing support for the farmers in Tanzania in 1999, the production in the area has nearly doubled from 4,500 tonnes in 2002 to 8,000 tonnes.
