What is your background in cocoa?

I joined Fairtrade with experience in sugar, sustainable food production and procurement. Due to the linkage between cocoa and sugar in consumer products, I quickly found myself working with companies who used both Fairtrade commodities.

For the last 11 years I have focused on cocoa. This job is amazing as I am privileged to follow the transformation of cocoa from the field it grows in all the way to the final consumer product sold to shoppers who choose Fairtrade. Interacting with the people in this complex business from farmer to consumer is endlessly fascinating.

How is the cocoa industry doing now?

Fairtrade’s cocoa sales continue to grow, with strong support from brands, retailers, and consumers. However, the cooperatives and their farmer members are rightly asking us to increase the amount of cocoa they sell as Fairtrade.

More generally the cocoa market has been through a significant change in the last couple of years. The price of cocoa increased rapidly as there was a shortage of supply caused by climate change, disease, and years of underinvestment in cocoa farmers livelihoods that increased their vulnerability to climate change and disease.

Climbing prices of cocoa for farmers is good news, but it is a complex picture when coupled with increased costs of production for the farmer, and in some cases reduced production of cocoa.

Some parts of the processing and consumer products manufacturing and marketing industry have found these higher prices challenging.

In the last months, we have seen the futures price of cocoa start to reduce significantly as demand for cocoa weakened and supply is projected to increase.  

What type of cocoa and chocolate are the markets looking for?

At Fairtrade we work with farmers and their cooperatives connecting disadvantaged producers with consumers, promoting fairer trading conditions, and supporting producers to combat poverty, strengthen their position, and take more control over their lives.

Part of our job is to persuade the market that this is the kind of cocoa and chocolate they are looking for.

Climate change and extreme weather events are making cocoa farming increasingly difficult. Is it possible that cocoa and chocolate could disappear?

While it is unlikely cocoa and chocolate will disappear, production and consequently farmer livelihoods are already being impacted significantly in some regions, and this may get worse.

At Fairtrade, with the assistance of some amazing project partners and donors, farmer cooperatives are responding to climate change through adoption of farming systems such as dynamic agroforestry. However, the reality is that many more farmers need financial support for transition costs and other climate change adaptation costs.

Cocoa prices have recently been at record highs. Does this mean that cocoa farmers’ livelihoods have improved?

At Fairtrade we have been measuring Ivorian cocoa farmers income every four years since 2016. Our latest study was released on the 17 September 2025.

The number of Ivorian cocoa famers living in extreme poverty significantly decreased from 36 percent in 2020 to 17 percent in 2024, a 19-percentage point drop. The positive change is even more pronounced when looking back to the 2017 study, which showed 58 percent of farmers living in extreme poverty – reflecting more than 40 percentage point improvement in the past seven years.

Other indicators from the study, however, showed a more complicated picture for Ivorian cocoa farmers who have been feeling the impact of inflation, climate change, and labour shortages, factors that have limited the positive effects expected from higher prices.

Child labour incidence in cocoa is well documented. Why is child labour such a particular risk in cocoa?

Poverty is one of the root causes of child labour. Other factors include a lack of access to quality schooling facilities or childcare, as well as exploitation, discrimination, conflict, and natural disasters. When families are unable to earn a decent living from their crops, and young people lack decent educational and employment opportunities, ending child labour remains very difficult. No parent wants their child to work rather than go to school. But the reality of the daily struggle to make ends meet is stark, especially for smallholder farmers.

What does the future look like for children in cocoa-growing regions?

It is essential that Fairtrade, along with concerned citizens, governments, organisations, and companies continue to collaborate to address the many complex underlying issues that cause child labour, especially poverty. By making such commitments the norm, and not a competitive disadvantage, we can improve the situation of millions of small-scale farmers and workers, as well as their children and communities.

Fairtrade’s holistic approach includes robust Standards, Fairtrade Minimum Price and Premium, and programmes. Our programmes channel resources to farmers to invest in prevention, mitigation, and remediation in their own communities, while also enabling commercial actors further along the supply chain to engage in meaningful ways.

The EU’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) bans the import of cocoa linked to deforestation. How does this affect cocoa farmers’ work?

Our experience is that smallholders and the communities they live in are conscious of the value of forests to them and the wider global community. However, poverty can increase the risks to forests.

The EUDR insists that businesses placing cocoa on the European market, exporting cocoa from Europe, or taking part in other business activities with cocoa undertake a relevant due diligence process. However, in some cases we have seen that the regulation has led cooperatives and their farmer members to manage increasingly complex datasets related to the geolocation of their members farms. Unfortunately support for the cooperatives from their commercial partners with the resources to manage these datasets has, in some cases, been uneven and inconsistent.

Companies selling products on the European market need to show that their supply chains are deforestation-free. Fairtrade Standards align with the EUDR. And building on a foundation of fair livelihoods and ethical data principles, Fairtrade offers companies and producers the support and security to meet EUDR requirements and go beyond compliance to meaningful forest protection.

Why should consumers choose products made with Fairtrade cocoa?

Fairtrade is a better way of shopping and doing business – uniting farmers, shoppers, businesses and governments to co-create a world that is fair to people and the planet.

Our Fairtrade Minimum Price interventions protect farmers when markets crash, our Fairtrade Premium provides an extra sum of money which farmers and their coops receive from companies on top of the Fairtrade Minimum Price, to invest in community or business projects of their choice.

Through our standards, programmes and projects we, and the consumers who choose Fairtrade products, are supporting farmers, their families and their cooperatives.

Do you like chocolate? If so, what kind?

I love eating chocolate, my favourite: dark chocolate with a high cocoa percentage.