At Whitakers Chocolates we value our environment and the community we operate within.
We believe in doing the right thing, treating people fairly and understand that even the smallest of steps can make a huge difference.
Our ambition is to sustainably provide high quality chocolate products throughout the world.
Our goals are broken down into 5 areas:
- Responsible trading
- Protecting the cocoa farmers livelihoods
- Community wellbeing
- Protecting our planet
- Consumer confidence
Responsible trading – Responsible purchasing to us means purchasing in a way that enables positive change at the supplier level, so that every part of the supply chain benefits. It requires a trusting, direct and honest relationship where both parties are able to negotiate and share risks equally and a purchaser who is committed to supporting human rights within the supply base.
Protecting the cocoa farmers livelihoods – We believe everyone in this world should be treated fairly and given a fair price for the work they do. If that means we pay more to ensure everyone in the supply chain benefits – that’s what we’ll do. We only work with trusted and credible suppliers, ones that share the same values, so together we can strengthen cocoa farmer practices and help build a better world for the people that matter. Wherever possible, we purchase Fairtrade cocoa.
(You might also want to read this blog post looking at the question: how are chocolates made?)
Community well-being – Working with our cocoa and chocolate partners to enhance the safety and well-being of children and families in the cocoa farming areas. Whilst also promoting a zero tolerance to child labour with our supply chain.
Protecting our planet – We only have one chance to make a difference, so we think GREEN. We promote environmental best practices within our business and within our supply chain. We strive in any area to make improvements towards a better world.
(If you live a plant-based life, you might like to visit our bulk vegan chocolate page here).
Consumer confidence – We believe we make the right ethical choices within the business to ensure our customers can buy with confidence.
These goals are an integral part of our sustainability policy, and as a business, we a fully committed. We only work with like-minded suppliers who share our ambitions and work together to make a difference.
As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainable cocoa, we wanted to find a partner who shared the same vision and values and one that would help us achieve our goals. We found the perfect partnership with Cargill.
Cargill live and work by their promise ‘The Cargill cocoa promise’. The Cargill cocoa promise reflects their commitment to improve the livelihoods of farmers and their communities, while accelerating progress towards a secure, sustainable and transparent global cocoa and chocolate supply chain.
Working together means we can deliver on our promise, meet our ethical goals and build consumer confidence in the Whitakers Chocolates brand.
More details on ‘The Cargill cocoa promise’ can be found here: The Cargill cocoa promise
In addition to our affiliation with Cargill and as part of our ongoing commitment to ethical choices, we use and promote Fairtrade Cocoa across most of our product range. This is particularly important to us as we believe in the work the Fairtrade Foundations offers the cocoa farming industry and dovetails with our vision and values.
The Fairtrade Foundation works directly with the cocoa farmers to strengthen the farming process, promotes fairer trading, improve living standards, environmental protection, climate change adaptation, promote zero child labour as well as gender equality.
We strongly believe working alongside both Cargill and Fairtrade will help make the difference needed for the wellbeing and future proofing of this sector.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Helen Keller
More Interesting Chocolate-Flavoured Blogs to Read:
- Click here to read about World Chocolate Day
- This post looks at the question: is plain chocolate dark chocolate?
- Take a look at this post to read about: how long does melted chocolate take to set?
- Take a look at this post if you want to learn how to temper chocolate without a thermometer.
- Click this link if you want to learn how to melt chocolate correctly.
