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Food
From Bean to Bite
Magnum cocoa beans have a long way to go before they become Magnum chocolate. We’re working closely with the Rainforest Alliance to make sure all our cocoa beans are responsibly sourced. It’s about quality and sustainability throughout every step of the journey.
Harvesting
Cocoa seeds are grown in pods that change colour as they ripen: from green to red, then red to purple and from purple to yellow. A single pod can contain between 30 – 50 cocoa beans.
The journey from cocoa beans to chocolate relies on the knowledge and skill of our cocoa farmers. Working with the Rainforest Alliance ensures that farmers are trained to know which cocoa pods are ready to be picked just by looking at them. Harvest too early and the pods won’t be ripe. Harvest too late and they’ll dry up.
The skilled farmers free the ripe pods from the tree with one clean cut. This doesn’t damage the plant, so the pods can keep flourishing year after year.
Fermenting
On Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms, farmers are taught that the best way to get the most from their cocoa beans is to leave them to ferment.
When it’s time to collect the beans, the bitter cocoa flavour has been replaced by the first hints of the taste, smell and colour of Magnum chocolate as we know it.
Drying
The farmers know the best place to dry their fermented beans is out under the scorching sun. They rake through them regularly to make sure they all dry evenly – some farmers even dance across the beans to spread them out.
Water slowly evaporates from the cocoa beans until they’re properly dry and perfectly ready.
Selecting & roasting
Only beans that meet our standards will become Magnum chocolate. Farmers are trained to pick the best ones, which they package and send to us ready for the next stage of the journey: roasting.
The cocoa beans are fragile, so we roast them gently. We start at 100◦C and gradually turn up the heat, roasting for at least 20mins.
Finally, we strip the beans from their shells. It’s time to make Magnum chocolate.
Making Magnum Ice cream
Perfectly roasted cocoa beans are crushed and ground into a rich cocoa paste, then turned into liquid chocolate. Other essential ingredients such as cocoa butter are stirred into the mix until it reaches the perfect taste and thickness.
As the warm, rich chocolate wraps over our velvety vanilla ice cream, it instantly cools down to leave our signature solid, thick Magnum chocolate – ready and waiting to be cracked.
Sustainability
Today, over 98% of Magnum cocoa beans are sustainably sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. We’re working hard to make it 100% very soon.
The beans help raise the farmers’ incomes, more women have the freedom to live the way they want and more children have access to education:
"I’ve realised the value of education and the need to send my children to school. Their attention should be on books, not on the farm with me."
Alhaji Mustapha Amenya, farmer on a Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farm.
We’re committed to creating change for the better across West Africa - from Ghana to Ivory Coast and Cameroon - and improving the lives of farmers and their families.
* Unilever is proud of our commitment to sustainability and sourcing Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa beans from Tanzania for one product of our Magnum Portfolio (Magnum Dark Chocolate & Raspberry Tub).
The marketing locally of cocoa in Tanzania has recently changed significantly and therefore the supply chain is unable to deliver certified cocoa RA beans from Tanzania to meet our needs. This means that for the time being, we will be purchasing a volume of cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms equivalent to the volume used in this product of our portfolio which contains cocoa RA beans from Tanzania. We expect this to be resolved soon. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and we remain committed with RFA.
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