By Estefania Marti and Roosa Hakkarainen
05 November 2025
Despite being one of the most widely traded agricultural products in the world, cocoa production and consumption continue to carry significant social and environmental costs. At our latest Global Partnership on the True Price of Food member meeting, over 40 members and partners came together to learn more and discuss strategies for measuring, reducing, and ultimately addressing these hidden costs across the cocoa value chain.
Setting the scene: Beyond living incomes
Antonie Fountain, from Voice Network, an umbrella organisation of 35 NGOs and trade unions, set the scene, sharing with participants a visualisation of the “problem tree of cocoa.” This tree is featured in the organisation’s latest 2025 edition of the Cocoa Barometer. The image depicts two major problems, represented by core branches: the human branch and the environmental branch. The root problem? Lack of good governance resulting in structural farmer poverty.
Cocoa prices have surged significantly since 1990. Climate change, swollen shoot virus, and ageing trees, among others, have been identified as key factors impacting the price of cocoa and contributing to current market volatility. This requires us to rethink how value is shared along the supply chain and the need to incorporate resilience in true cost accounting assessments. “While fair and true pricing won’t be the only solution, it is a key condition to solving these challenges” said Antonie.
Antonie emphasised that the three pillars: a) good governance, b) good purchasing practices, and c) good agricultural practices, must come together to create a truly sustainable business model in the cocoa sector. Last but not least, Antonie stressed that companies must: a) pay fair prices to farmers, b) share risks equitably across the chain (e.g., with longer-term contracts), and c) be accountable for their social and environmental impacts. He reminded participants that under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses have a duty to respect human rights, a principle central to the rights-based approach of the True Price Method.
Insights from speakers
Italy – Ferrero case study
Professor Prof. Angelo Riccaboni from the University of Siena introduced a new project in collaboration with CIHEAM Bari, supporting the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in promoting business practices that improve the social and environmental impact of Italian companies with international value chains. The group will be researching the cocoa and coffee value chains in cooperation with three companies: Ferrero, Lavazza and Illy Cafe. This multi-stakeholder project was recently presented at the latest UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake meeting, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last July 2025.
Diving into the case study of Ferrero, Prof Riccaboni shared key findings derived from interviews. The overall message focused on the importance of transparency and long-term supplier relationships. Angelo also introduced Ferrero’s risk analysis approach, where higher perceived risks result in higher demand transparency from suppliers. To address higher risk situations, Ferrero is implementing the ‘Farming Value Program’, including collaborations with NGOs, for example, Save the Children, to address child labour.
For next steps, Prof Riccaboni’s team is aiming to increase the number of case studies in order to develop guidelines that help companies be more sustainable and respectful of the rights of local communities. “The observatory would introduce other companies from other countries and include best practices” said Angelo.
Brazil – the True Food Initiative
As one of the world’s largest food producers and contributors to both emissions and food waste, Brazil plays a vital role in transforming global food systems. Represented by co-founders Estevan Sartoreli and Andressa de Mello, the True Food Initiative aims to bring data to scale ecological agriculture and agroforestry in Brazil.
The initiative promotes territorial approaches and sustainable, efficient agriculture to make productivity compatible with planetary boundaries. The True Food Initiative will be collaborating with True Price to adapt the true price method to the local Brazilian context. A first assessment of cocoa will compare two agricultural practices and will be carried out in collaboration with Dengo. Dengo was born in 2017 as a social enterprise to promote living income for small and medium cocoa farmers in Brazil. With over 250 farmers improving their earnings and production practices, Estevan emphasised the need for collaboration across landscapes.
Netherlands – Kumasi Drinks – beyond the bean
The final speaker was Patricia Leek, Impact Lead at Kumasi. Kumasi Drinks is reinventing the cocoa sector by utilising the “wasted” pods, including the fruit pulp, to make a juice which sells as an alternative to soft drinks. The company is expanding into the B2B market, recently signing a partnership with a major player in the food sector in Côte d’Ivoire. To strengthen its operations, Kumasi is building a new factory to gain greater control over its supply chain and handle pasteurisation in-house. “As an impact business, the more sales we make, the more farmers we can reach,” said Patricia.
With support from the Netherlands Food Partnership True Price Seed Fund, Kumasi is developing a case study comparing a conventional cocoa value chain with Kumasi’s upcycled model. The study, set for release in May 2026, will reveal how upcycling can enhance social and environmental impact while adding value for producers.
Key Takeaways
The session concluded with a short Q&A with the speakers. It was highlighted that true pricing can help move beyond living income programs, not only in the cocoa, but also in sectors like coffee and palm oil, where efforts have focused on poverty alleviation, but data on sustainable production practices remain limited. At the same time, there is a need to ensure people have sufficient information to be willing to pay more for sustainable products. How true pricing can help shape new consumer narratives remains an important question for future exploration.
Overall, three overarching messages emerge:
- Governance, transparency, and purchasing policies are central to making sustainability part of the core business.
- Innovation in the private sector, such as upcycling cocoa beans and efforts to reduce waste, can amplify impact.
- Data and policy integration, supported by true cost accounting and true pricing assessments, can accelerate system-wide change.
A big thank you to all speakers and participants for their insightful contributions. For any questions, feel free to reach out to globalpartnership@trueprice.org or to estefania@trueprice.org.
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