Our Partners

Investing in our communities

Since 2012, we’ve invested €80M into making sure our cocoa supply is sustainable, and a big part of that has involved making sure we know where each and every cocoa bean comes from. Not only has this enabled us to guarantee that our cocoa is Rainforest Alliance Certified, it’s also helped us to identify 37 cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire who will benefit from our wider impact programmes.

We’ve already supported 200 female cocoa farmers though our 2020 Pleasure Imagined campaign, helping them to earn a living from their passion projects. But it doesn’t stop there.

We’re working with partners, including CARE International and 100WEEKS, to provide training and funding to help them diversify their incomes while also developing their business skills. We’re also working with Ivorian fashion designer, Rebecca Zoro, to promote creativity in our farming communities.

It’s all part of our wider cocoa impact programmes, which include planting 465,000 new native trees in Côte d'Ivoire, and our commitment to working with Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.

Our partnership with CARE International

CARE International works to fight inequality by eliminating poverty at the root and providing aid to those most in need. They believe that when women earn, everyone benefits. And they help women do this through their Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs).

Their VSLAs enable community members to pool together their resources to create a ‘village bank’. This allows women to save small amounts, see their collective savings grow, and borrow money– for example, to invest in setting up a small business.

In partnership with CARE International, we’re helping our farmers to set up VSLAs. Not only will they benefit from learning how to efficiently save and invest small amounts of money, but we’ll also provide training in business and marketing to help them make money from other skills and passions – helping them to secure a steady income all year round.

But we don’t just give them the support they need to start their own businesses – we give them the skills and confidence they need to grow them too. Along with CARE International, we provide entrepreneurial and financial training, and raise awareness of gender equality, to help our female farmers take their businesses, and themselves, to the next level.

Our work with 100WEEKS

100WEEKS is an IT platform that helps people give money directly to women in need. We’ve been working alongside them to empower hundreds of our female farmers. For 100 weeks, we provide women with weekly payments on mobile phones that we’ve donated, as well as entrepreneurial and financial training. This allows them to invest and develop sustainable livelihoods, enabling them to stand on their own two feet and change their lives for good.