Albert Heijn has committed to source cocoa for all its own-brand products through Tony’s Open Chain, an initiative trying to source the commodity more sustainably.
Over the next three years, the Dutch retailer plans to move its more than 600 of own-label products containing cocoa to the scheme, developed by chocolate business Tony’s Chocolonely.
Tony's Open Chain, launched by Tony's Chocolonely in 2019, operates on a shared costing and sourcing model.
It strives to establish “justice and equality" as the standard in the cocoa supply chains in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire.
Albert Heijn has worked with Tony's Open Chain since 2018 on its Delicata own brand.
The move to Tony's Open Chain for all the retailer's own-label products containing cocoa is expected to at least triple the volume of the commodity it buys through the scheme.
"We are proud of this next step in the chain in terms of making our own brand chocolate range more sustainable," Jan Willem Balk, director of sourcing at Albert Heijn, said. "We would like to inspire the rest of the market and show that it is possible: fair and more sustainable cocoa for all products."
Speaking to Just Food in June, Ben Greensmith, Tony’s Chocolonely's UK and Ireland country manager, highlighted the lack of adequate payment to farmers, which has prevented investment in farm sustainability and modernisation.
The company claims to hold a fifth of the market for large chocolate bars in the Benelux countries and is expanding its presence in Germany, Austria, and the Nordic countries, which it refers to as its “golden markets”.
Greensmith said at the time Tony’s Chocolonely's accounts for "about 0.5% of the cocoa that comes from west Africa".
He added: "In the next ten years, we want 10% of the cocoa to be coming through our value chain."
Hitting that target, he explained, would be through sharing its practices with other companies.
"There’s two ways that we’ll do that: one is growing Tony’s brands. The other way is saying to companies this is how we do it," Greensmith said. "We pay a higher price to enable the farmers that we work with to earn a living wage and importantly that means they can get out of poverty. This year, it means we’re paying about 70% on top of the farming price but that’s voluntary. That enables farmers to earn a worthy living income.
"We have a fully traceable supply chain, all of the cocoa is tracked and traced. We visit all the farms every year. It means we take responsibility for how that cocoa is sourced.
"We work with them to have long-term agreements so they can plan for the future. We help them with diversification as well.
"That’s how we will get 10% share of all the cocoa coming out of west Africa. One, through Tony’s brand, two, enabling other companies to copy us."
