Fairtrade welcomes scientific innovation that aims to reduce environmental harm and strengthen the future of global food systems. However, Fairtrade Foundation believes any new technology in relation to cocoa production must be assessed through a simple lens: does it protect and advance the rights, livelihoods, and resilience of the millions of small‑scale farmers who grow the world’s cocoa?

Lab‑grown cocoa is an emerging technology that does not involve farmers and therefore cannot be certified under the Fairtrade Standards. Fairtrade certification is built on a system of minimum prices, premiums, democratic farmer organisations, and strict human rights and environmental safeguards. These protections apply to cocoa grown by people and communities.

Lab‑grown cocoa is often marketed as a sustainability solution to reduce pressure on forests or supply volatility. Its use must not undermine farming communities who rely on cocoa production for their livelihoods. For decades farming communities have been forced to live in extreme poverty, systematically underpaid for their goods and labour. 

Cocoa farming is the backbone of rural economies across West Africa, Latin America, and Asia. It provides income for 5–6 million smallholders, many of whom already earn below the extreme poverty line, face increasing climate pressures, and volatile global markets. Any shift toward lab‑grown alternatives must not make the people who grow our cocoa more vulnerable. 

Fairtrade calls on the companies who are investing $billions into exploring lab‑grown cocoa to:

• Be transparent with consumers in on‑pack information and in marketing that the cocoa used in the product is grown in a lab

• Disclose environmental impacts and energy use

• Avoid misleading claims or greenwashing, including suggesting lab‑grown cocoa is inherently “more ethical” while ignoring farmer impacts

• Continue and increase investment in sustainable, fair, and traceable cocoa supply chains that deliver living incomes for farmers

• Innovation is welcome only if it complements, not reduces, smallholder livelihoods

• Companies must not use lab‑grown cocoa to avoid fixing exploitation, low incomes and wages wages, or deforestation in real supply chains

Fairtrade will continue to champion the rights of cocoa farmers and the value of conventional, responsibly grown cocoa. Innovation has a role to play in building a more sustainable future, but it must never sideline the people whose work, knowledge, and communities sustain the cocoa sector.

- Ends -

Notes to Editors:

For more information, please contact:

Laura Ouseley 

Laura.ouseley@fairtrade.org.uk,

+44 (0)7909 875 956,

Martine Parry 

Martine.Parry@fairtrade.org.uk or media@fairtrade.org.uk