06 COCOA SUSTAINABILITY


are not the same; different issues are prominent in different regions.” While cocoa is a major ingredient for


Ferrero’s business, hazelnuts are synonymous with Ferrero’s most famous export, the Ferrero Rocher. How does the company avoid the risks associated with sustainable hazelnut production and supply? Turkey is a major exporter of hazelnuts and one of Ferrero’s main suppliers. In a recent Dutch documentary, there were allegations made about the supposed practice of child labour in the harvesting of hazelnuts in Turkey. As both a company and a member of CAOBISCO, Ferrero have investigated the claims and held meetings with the Turkish authorities. “We always try to apply the same rule I


mentioned before, you can’t go into a country and change the laws or customs as an industry, you have to work with the local authorities, try to find out to what extent the problem exists and what can be done to solve it. We’ve had rather good results because the Turkish authorities are acting on this.” As it turns out, child labour was being used mainly by migrant workers that had their families help out for a few weeks in early September, when the harvesting of hazelnuts takes place before school term starts. “It’s not as big a problem as it is for cocoa, but


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we immediately acted upon this and we’re getting good results.” Next up for Ferrero is the publishing of their


second CSR report in June. The first was a bit of a novelty for the company, being a family-owned multinational. As a family-owned company, Ferrero is not quoted on the stock market and so don’t have the same quoting obligations that companies on the stock market have. “The consumer is our shareholder,” Cagli explains. “The consumer wants to know these things about us. How we source our raw materials, if we respect certain rules about ethical issues, the nutritional composition of our products and the governance of our company. When you buy products from a company, you want to be able to say that you trust that company. I don’t think any consumer would buy a product from a company that they do not feel they can trust.” “The motto of Michele Ferrero, the founder of our company, has always been ‘the consumer is king’. He actually has an image of a consumer sitting on a throne with a crown on his head with the motto written underneath; it is displayed in his studio. This fits perfectly with our philosophy and if the consumer wants to know, then we have a duty to disclose information.” It’s a bold move for a notoriously reserved


company to publish so much information on company governance. “It was a bit of a shock to some,” Cagli admits. “The Reputation Institute ranked Ferrero as the number one most trusted Company in 2009 by consumers worldwide. I would be happy to maintain that over the next 10 years!”


Innovations for a better world.


New Food Volume 14, Issue 3, 2011


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