Juergen Steinemann, CEO of Barry Callebaut
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Musician and activist Bob Geldorf, along with Nobel Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus, will head the celebrity side of a new chocolate meetup in Davos 5-7 June.
A conference called Chocovision 2012 is being organized by world chocolate industry behemoth Barry Callebaut, to bring together all stakeholders from the cocoa, chocolate and retail fields. Geldorf and Yunus are keynote speakers.
The conference is the first Davos-style summit in what is expected to become a regular event.
The agenda will focus on sustainability, but also several challenges facing the chocolate world: changing consumer needs and behaviour, volatile prices for raw materials, increasing regulation and in cocoa growing countries, unsustainable agricultural practices plus problems linked to social and political systems.
Barry Callebaut is a major supplier to the chocolate-making world
Barry Callebaut chief executive Juergen Steinemann in a statement issued by the company about the new conference says, “There is an obvious need for better alignment and more efficient knowledge transfer as well as pro-active information sharing between all stakeholders in the supply chain, from farmer organizations, certification bodies, cocoa processors, chocolate manufacturers and retailers up to end consumers.”
Zurich company to help increase Unilever’s sustainability efforts
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Barry Callebaut and Unilever Monday 23 January signed a long-term partnership agreement that will double the cocoa and chocolate the Swiss-based company delivers to the Dutch-based consumer goods and foods producer. Barry Callebaut will invest CHF22 million under the terms of the agreement to ramp up to “provide 70 percent of Unilever’s global cocoa and chocolate products”.
Unilver is looking to ice cream products in particular to double sales while reducing environmental impact. The Zurich chocolate company has already helped build sales significantly with the Magnum ice cream line. Unilever has come under pressure, along with other multinationals, for its use of chocolate that is not certified Fair Trade. The company notes on its web site that “cocoa accounts for 4 percent of our total volume of agricultural raw materials. We buy 1 percent of global production, 95 percent of which is used in our ice cream, including in our biggest global ice cream brand Magnum and in Ben & Jerry’s.”
Monday’s press release from Barry Callebaut about the new partnership terms notes that “Barry Callebaut has also been working closely with Unilever to meet its sustainable cocoa sourcing commitments.”
CNN Friday 20 January ran a major investigative news background story on child labour in the cocoa industry, which has resulted in some calls for boycotting chocolate. As part of the network’s series, it contacted the chocolate industry for companies’ responses.
The Zurich company has been addressing the issue for some time and has considerable consumer information on the industry-wide problem.
Details of the deal were not revealed.
Callebaut supplies the chocolate industry: here at the Paris salon
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Swiss cocoa and chocolate products firm Barry Callebaut, ended its fiscal year 31 August with a 9 percent increase in net profits of CHF258.9 million, up nearly 20 pecent in local currencies. “The weakening of various currencies against the Swiss franc – Barry Callebaut’s reporting currency – negatively impacted both sales revenue and operating profit (EBIT),” the group said in a statement Thursday 10 November. “In local currencies, sales revenue rose strongly by 13.3 percent (+0.7 percent in CHF) to CHF4,554.4 million, driven by the volume increase and by higher raw material prices.”
Sales volume was 1.296 tons, compared to 1.209 tons a year earlier. The company took a non-recurring loss of CHF82.1m for discontinuing its European retail products business.
Temp general jobs up in US, but not professional ones
Adecco, the world’s largest temporary employment agency, based in Zurich, reported Wednesday that revenues were up 7 percent and gross profit up 4 percent, both in constant currencies, for the third quarter of 2011. France and the US, its two largest markets, continued to show solid growth although chief executive Patrick De Maeseneire said “Whereas general staffing in North America performed well, growth in professional staffing was disappointing. Germany, Italy and Emerging Markets maintained strong double-digit growth.”
Chocolate Week celebrates artisanal chocolate in Lake Geneva region
Switzerland signs major new cocoa agreement
Swiss artisanal chocolate comes in a wide variety of forms, but also flavours / chocolate sheets from Tristan, Bougy-Villars, canton Vaud
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Chocolate is very much in the news in Switzerland this week, with cantons Fribourg, Geneva and Vaud celebrating chocolate week and the federal government signing the International Cocoa Agreement to support the cocoa production industry and encourage sustainable development and fair trade policies.
Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest supplier of top quality chocolate and cocoa products, added its own sweet news Thursday 4 November with positive results for fiscal year 2009/2010: profits up 10.9 percent to CHF251.7 million.
The Zurich company’s turnover was CHF5.21 billion francs, up 6.8 percent and it says it now looks for 6-8 percent growth in production volume in the next three years.
70% of world cocoa comes from W Africa, says the World Cocoa Foundation (chart: Barry Callebaut, Zurich)
The company has 7,500 employees in 26 countries, with 40 production facilities. It is active in sustainable development efforts in the cocoa industry, pointing out in its reports that without cocoa, there would be no chocolate, and a viable cocoa industry is therefore an “imperative” for the company. It is a key member of the World Cocoa Foundation, created in 2000 to improve cocoa production conditions, with cocoa a product supplied almost entirely by developing countries.
Switzerland signs International Cocoa Accord
Switzerland Wednesday 3 November announced that it is signing the 2010 International Cocoa Agreement, which creates a discussion forum for producers, consumers, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and governments that will initially look at how to create a certification system for cocoa.
Bulk of world cocoa producers very poor
Barry Callebaut supplies chocolate-makers: Salon du Chocolat, Paris, October 2009
Barry Callebaut's chocolate supply samples, Paris Salon du Chocolat, 2009
Zurich / Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The global economic crisis may have served up stress and more stress to many people, but the Swiss chocolate industry appears to be sailing happily through it: Barry Callebaut sales in 2008-2009 rose 4.1 percent in a world market that contracted by 2 percent last year. The Zurich-based company is the world’s largest supplier of top-quality cocoa and chocolate products. Profits also rose, 18.5 percent for net profits in local currencies, but the strong Swiss franc had a negative impact.The company reported 11 November on its fiscal year, which closed 31 August 2009.
Nestle at the same time has offered chocolate lovers good news from its research laboratory near Vevey: 40 grams of dark chocolate a day, one small square, has been shown in tests to reduce stress levels. The research is published in the Journal of Proteome Research.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Barry Callebaut is the world’s largest top-end chocolate manufacturer, a supplier to most of the world’s best chocolate brands, and it has just served up its 2007/2008 financial report with a large smile. Sales volume rose 10% and sales revenue rose 17.1% to CHF4.82 million.
