Cocoa and chocolate products continue to be enjoyed by consumers around the world, with sustainability remaining top of mind when making their purchases. To connect consumers with the journey of the cocoa they are eating and drinking, Cargill has launched CocoaWise, a digital portal that provides a lens through which food and beverage manufacturers have increased knowledge and shareability into the origin of the products they source from Cargill’s direct supply chain.

“As one of the world’s leading cocoa and chocolate producers, we sit at the center of the cocoa sector and connect all the players in the value chain, from working hand-in-hand with the farmers to sustainably providing high-quality products to our customers,” said Harold Poelma, president of Cargill’s cocoa & chocolate business. “With cutting-edge technologies, like CocoaWise, we are able to strengthen this collaboration and move the industry forward together towards a more transparent and sustainable cocoa supply chain benefiting both farmers and customers.”

CocoaWise provides customers with fast, easy access to the sustainability data of Cargill’s cocoa supply chain. With full, real-time visibility, CocoaWise enables customers to be more deeply connected to the communities from which they purchase their cocoa and see first-hand the impact of financial investments in key initiatives that meet the needs of the cocoa farming communities on the ground, such as providing sustainable agriculture coaching for farmers, entrepreneurship trainings for women and nutritional programs for families.

CocoaWise pulls information from a centralized data platform, CocoaWise 360, which is fed from a suite of Cargill’s digital tools that are designed to increase transparency and traceability while enhancing cocoa farming practices and community well-being. Some of these include: 

Supply chain transparency:

• CocoaWise Map – An interactive map that shows the name and location of the 128 cooperative offices in Côte d’Ivoire, the 7 buying stations in Ghana and the 11 buying stations in Cameroon belonging to our direct sourcing network in these countries.
• CocoaWise BeanTracker – Cocoa cooperatives physically tracking the cocoa beans they manage back to the individual farm via cocoa bag barcodes to prevent beans from deforested areas to enter our supply chain as well as to help them make better data-driven business decisions.

Financial transparency:

• CocoaWise eFinance – Mobile money solutions provided to farmers so they can be assured of being paid fairly, accurately and securely.

Impact transparency:

• CocoaWise ProFarm – A set of digital tools supporting farmers to able to make informed decisions based on agronomy, up-to-date weather and market access information. In addition to helping farmers with tailored farm management plans aimed at boosting productivity, this system gathers farm data, such as geolocation, crop health, household and income data, to communicate with farmers.

• CocoaWise ProCoop – A set of tools that support farmer cooperatives to professionalize how they sell and manage their cocoa. It also manages first-mile traceability.
• CocoaWise Insight – A monitoring and evaluation system through which we track and monitor progress in achieving our cocoa sustainability goals. It includes detailed data, such as tree density, the cultivation methods used, replanting activities, along with a wealth of information about farming families and their communities, including child labor monitoring.

“For years, we have been putting technology to work to help the 210,000 farmers in the five countries we purchase our cocoa. This crop year alone, we invested an additional USD $3 million in traceability initiatives that allowed us to bring the data from our supply chain together in more powerful ways and help farmers enhance agricultural practices,” said Taco Terheijden, sustainability director for Cargill’s cocoa & chocolate business. “If we want to make sure farmers have a bright future growing sustainable cocoa, we need to make sure consumers believe in it.”

Cargill takes a technology-driven, evidence-based approach to fostering sustainability and transparency across the cocoa sector. Its digital portal, CocoaWise, and data platform, CocoaWise 360, are the next steps in this journey to source, manufacture and market 100 percent-sustainable cocoa ingredients by 2030.