New laws designed to monitor supply chains are putting pressure on the food industry. But not organic chocolate producer EcoFinia. Thanks to digital innovations, the chocolate bars from the company’s iChoc brand can now be traced right back to the individual cocoa farmer.
One click on the interactive world map and the face of Juan De la Rosa appears. The Dominican-Republic-based farmer grows cocoa for EcoFinia GmbH in Bochum, Germany – his beans are used in bars of iChoc. The QR code on the front of the chocolate bar packaging can be used to track the entire cocoa supply chain online. This isn’t a marketing gimmick – instead, it is precisely recorded, documented and then visualised with the help of hundreds of pieces of data.
The iChoc brand’s cocoa is organic, Fairtrade-certified and vegan. But this didn’t go far enough for EcoFinia. “We are voluntarily leading the way and creating maximum transparency for our customers”, says Managing Director Gerrit Wiezoreck. He calls the principle ‘farmer-to-bar’ and this level of traceability is unique in the industry. “It is extremely difficult to trace raw materials like cocoa due to the decentralised structure of the supply chain, with the many small farms, and then the complex fermentation and drying processes.”
The chocolate bars from the company’s iChoc brand can now be traced right back to the individual cocoa farmer
Intelligent tracking tool
Normally, cocoa beans from several co-operatives are mixed and then processed in different factories. A single co-operative often includes thousands of cocoa farms. But not with iChoc: Here, the cocoa can be traced back to the individual collection centre, which is supplied by around 30 independent farmers. “In order to compensate for any supply difficulties experienced by individual suppliers, we always source the cocoa for a batch from a pool of 240 farmers – the so-called iChoc route“, explains Gerrit Wiezoreck.
EcoFinia spent over a year working on the innovative tracking tool – from the initial idea during one of Wiezoreck’s trips to the Dominican Republic, to its development with the help of the in-house IT department and external experts. His experience as former Head of Data & AI Strategy and Transformation at E.ON Digital Technologies stood him in good stead: “I knew what software and databases were needed, but linking the data from the country of origin with production at our plant in Herford was a challenge.”
The highest standard in Fairtrade
“Identity preservation” is the name of this, which represents the highest standard in Fairtrade. The logistical effort is immense, as the individual products must remain physically separate throughout the entire value chain. It is intended to benefit both customers and the cocoa farmers themselves. “Every time a customer tracks their chocolate bar on the iChoc website, a donation is made to a project chosen by the local communities themselves”, says Wiezoreck. The first project concerns an aqueduct in one of the farming regions along the iChoc route. The aim is to raise up to 20,000 euros per year. Customers can visit the website to find out about the latest progress and about new projects on the horizon.
Gerrit Wiezoreck believes that other chocolate manufacturers should follow suit: “Legal requirements, such as those currently imposed by the Supply Chain Act and the Deforestation Ordinance, will continue to increase, as will customer demand for ‘clean’ products. Precise tracking is the only way to reliably rule out child labour and other forms of exploitation in cocoa cultivation.”
- More information available at www.ichoc.traceparency.de
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