Sustainable cocoa raw materials

100% in 2020

2020   Our target: 100% of the purchased raw materials (including, powder, butter and mass) of choco and crackles are either UTZ or Fairtrade certified.

How it started

In 2006, Oxfam Novib started campaigning against unfair cocoa (https://www.oxfamnovib.nl/verhalen/de-groene-sint). This campaign was mainly targeted at the Sinterklaas festivities and the chocolate letter. Slowly, the industry and supermarket chains started to support these campaigns which resulted in the UTZ certification of most chocolate letters in 2010.

Following this, a Dutch competitor and colleague from the chocolate vermicelli industry promised at the end of 2010 to purchase a part of his raw materials UTZ certified. At Delicia we went even further in 2011; instead of processing 10% or 15% UTZ certified cocoa in our brands, we immediately went for the full 100% UTZ in our licensed brands. And thus, chocolate vermicelli brands like K3, Piet Piraat and Kabouter Plop were showing off their UTZ logo on the supermarket shelves. Soon, retailers got in touch with us and by 2012 all supermarket chains had made the switch; UTZ was introduced to the Dutch chocolate vermicelli house brands. The impact of this movement caused the A-brands to speed up their switch to 100% UTZ certified. 'Green' chocolate vermicelli was born.

But the switch to UTZ, Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade happens a lot slower abroad. The Netherlands is a real frontrunner. In 2019, Delicia decided that from 1 January 2020 all sales of chocolate vermicelli, flakes and crispies are produced and sold using certified cocoa mass, cocoa powder and cocoa butter, whether the customer wants to pay for it or not.

Our plan for the coming years is to switch all of our chocolate coated products to UTZ/Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade or something similar. This way we are doing everything we can to make life more pleasant for everybody we, directly or indirectly, get in touch with.

We make life delicious!

► To the UTZ website.

► UTZ becomes Rainforest Alliance.

► To the Fairtrade website.