Luker Chocolate's Long Term 'Dream' To Ensure Cocoa Availability
Sustainability is top of mind for Luker Chocolate.
Through its Chocolate Dream initiative, the company is focused on supporting the communities around the farmers that grow and harvest the raw cocoa, is working to reduce its carbon footprint, and developing new products that reduce the use of sugar and other less healthy ingredients in favor of ingredients that make its products healthier to consume.
By 2027, the company plans to increase the income of 1,500 cocoa farmers by 20% and improve the social well-being and quality of life for 5,000 families over that same time frame. As of the end of 2023, 1,125 families producing cocoa have increased their income and 3,933 families are participating in projects improving their empowerment and social development.
Additionally, Luker is encouraging environmentally positive practices across almost 12,000 hectares of land with a focus on sustainability, biodiversity enhancement, water conservation, and forest protection.
And toward its Net Zero goal, Luker is working to reduce carbon emissions by 28% to 2027 and 42% to 2030, in the energy and industrial emissions space, compared to Luker’s baseline year of 2021.
Recently, Marcela Jaramillo, vice president of Marketing at Luker Chocolate, spoke with Store Brands to offer more insight into the company’s efforts to work with farmers and keep the supply of cocoa flowing for years to come
"The Chocolate Dream is our collaborative sustainability plan where we work hand-in-hand with communities, farmers, and partners in the industry. It started from a desire to work together with communities and understand their particular needs to see how we can find prosperity in growing cocoa."
—Marcela Jaramillo, Luker Chocolate
STORE BRANDS: Luker Chocolate has developed its Chocolate Dream sustainability plan. What are some of the plan’s key elements?
MARCELA JARAMILLO: The Chocolate Dream is our collaborative sustainability plan where we work hand-in-hand with communities, farmers, and partners in the industry. It started from a desire to work together with communities and understand their particular needs to see how we can find prosperity in growing cocoa. The plan also has three objectives. First is increasing farmer income, second is strengthening social wellbeing in growing communities, and third is promoting balance with the environment. We feel these three ideas will allow us to help communities find a sustainable future in the industry.
STORE BRANDS: What were some of the motivating factors behind developing the Chocolate Dream?
JARAMILLO: There are some challenges and a lot of struggles that farmers in Colombia who grow cocoa have. In Colombia, we are obsessed with cocoa and it's important to develop ways to keep people from migrating from rural communities, where cocoa is grown, to the cities. That type of migration is a big challenge for agricultural supply chains and how they are going to look in the future. Within cocoa, we’re working with communities not only for the present so they can be more profitable, but helping them be sustainable for future generations. We want to give young people a reason to stay in rural areas of Colombia and allow them to believe in agriculture and look at this as a way forward.
STORE BRANDS: What were some of the bigger challenges Luker has faced in recent years?
JARAMILLO: One of the biggest challenges is access. If you think about Colombia, it is quite a diverse country. We have geographical challenges with approximately 65,000 cocoa farmers that are spread all over the country, sometimes far apart from each other. We wanted to develop ways to get closer to them to work together and create new projects and help with implementation. Today, we're talking a lot about technology, how we can implement traceability systems and verification systems. The second challenge is the age gap in cocoa farmers. Today, cocoa farmers average 65 years old. We have a population getting older that has difficulties to access information, technology, and connectivity. We also want to connect the younger generation to cocoa and build a network from them. And climate change is also leading to major challenges. We have seen the effects of climate change directly on local farming with areas that because of excessive rain or excessive drought have had plant diseases or difficulties managing farms and implementing programs properly.
STORE BRANDS: With climate change, it sounds as if Colombia is experiencing various weather extremes?
JARAMILLO: We see these extremes as it depends on the region in Colombia where a farm is located. We really don’t have seasons, but we do have periods of excessive rain or excessive drought. Part of our work with farmers is helping them understand better agricultural practices that have less impact on the environment. As an industry we can definitely make a positive impact on the environment through the use of regenerative practices.
STORE BRANDS: We hear a great deal of talk about the wellbeing of farmers and their workers as it pertains to making enough money. How can Luker ensure that happens and farmers are properly compensated?
JARAMILLO: This is one of the main objectives of the Chocolate Dream. Profitability and farmer income is one of our priorities and we have three specific initiatives to ensure this happens. First is increasing income through productivity. Right now the average productivity in Colombia for local farmers is around 400 kilograms (approximately 882 pounds) and our objective is to get farmers to 600 kilograms. We work in an industry where cocoa farming is made up of small plots and small family farms. It’s difficult to increase income through greater production, but if we do it through productivity, it is possible to increase farmer income exponentially. We have already started doing this work and impacted around 1,000 farmers with a project specifically geared to helping farmers increase productivity through better farming practices. That is a very direct and effective way to increase farmer income.
The second one has to do with the diversification of income. One is by crop diversification and we talk a lot about agroforestry. This can have an impact on income when you can help farmers introduce crops that can have additional income for them. And then the second way is also diversifying income by supporting other types of activities in the family. One of the challenges in rural Columbia is women and young people have limited access to opportunities to have economic independence. We work through a specific project in the Chocolate Dream to support rural entrepreneurship. Helping women who want to start their own business as an additional income to the family is another way to grow income.
It is also important how we maximize price transfer directly to the farmer. That is something we work very closely with our partners in the supply chain, with farmers associations, and with our partners to ensure the farmer is getting more of the international market price.
STORE BRANDS: When you first presented the Chocolate Dream to the farmers, what's their reaction and how did they implement the program with Luker?
JARAMILLO: One of the things that we have come to understand from working closely with farmers is there are differences. There are farmers that are very traditional, usually older, and they have a difficult time embracing change. We also have farmers that are early adopters that are eager to find new ways to change their practices, have more income, and introduce new practices to help the environment. What we have seen is when you start with these early adopters, other farmers who see the results want to jump in. There is a level of influential marketing.
STORE BRANDS: What impact has Chocolate Dream had on Luker’s business?
JARAMILLO: We are firm believers in creating shared value, so if the farmers are doing well they see a sustainable future in farming and we’re able to have a sustainable supply of high quality cocoa for the long term. We are also focused on the impact this has on the business of those who we partner with that are also looking to have a positive impact on the farmers.
STORE BRANDS: From a product development perspective, it appears that Luker is also able to offer a healthier type of chocolate.
JARAMILLO: We are working hard in terms of innovation and how we can develop new chocolates and new formulations for this new trend of healthy and indulgence that is continuing to grow. We are seeing a lot of interest from retailers who are looking to meet this need as more consumers are looking for healthier ingredients, even in chocolate. We are seeing consumers wanting more natural ingredients, clean labels, and also looking to reduce the consumption of certain ingredients. This year we are launching a chocolate made with pea protein that meets the need for functionality and also targets the plant-based segment that is growing steadily.
We also have chocolate made with natural sugar such as our dark chocolate with coconut sugar. The need for products that are made with reduced amounts of sugar or that eliminates the use of sugar also continues to grow.
That challenge for us is that the chocolate has to be delicious. What we have seen is that the consumer is not willing to sacrifice taste for health, so that’s the balance we’re looking for with our new formulations.