Cocoa and chocolate manufacturers, Barry Callebaut Group and its premium brand Cacao Barry, announced Chef Francisco Migoya, USA Cacao Barry Ambassador, as the lead chef for cocoa farming sustainability in support of the Cocoa Horizons Foundation.
Cocoa Horizons is one of the key sustainability programs helping Barry Callebaut achieve its 2025 Forever Chocolate commitments – as recently reported by us.
The Cocoa Horizons Foundation is a non-profit organisation established by Barry Callebaut in Zurich, Switzerland to scale impact and drive change in cocoa producing origins.
The sustainability initiative is an impact driven program focused on cocoa farmers prosperity and helping to build self-sustaining farming communities that protect nature and children.
Chef Francisco Migoya will be a champion for sustainable cocoa practices and work with Cacao Barry and the Cocoa Horizons Foundation. His duty is to educate chefs and continue raising awareness on sustainability throughout the cocoa industry worldwide.
Chef Francisco Migoya, head chef at Modernist is recognised as one of the top pastry chefs in the country.
In 2016, while visiting cocoa plantations in Peru with Cacao Barry, he was exposed to the realities of unsustainable cocoa production, such as deforestation and child labour.
As a direct result of cocoa farmer poverty, it is estimated that more than 1.5 million children are working on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana alone. Additionally, deforestation is a major contributor to climate change while climate change also threatens the ecosystems that cocoa farmers depend on.
He has since been on a mission to work towards these sustainable goals to eradicate child labour, lift cocoa farmers out of poverty, eliminate deforestation, and become carbon positive by 2025.
Cacao Barry announced that it has already met its goal of sourcing 100% sustainable cocoa this year and, with Chef Migoya’s commitment, they will continue to create impact through the Cocoa Horizons Foundation on improving the livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities through the promotion of sustainable, entrepreneurial farming, improved productivity, and community development, not only for now, but for future generations.
Chef Francisco Migoya said,
Being a Cacao Barry Ambassador not only means enthusiastically supporting the high-quality chocolates that I’ve used for years, but being part of something bigger through the Cocoa Horizons partnership, with an emphasis on promoting sustainable practices.
It’s breathtaking how much progress the Cocoa Horizons Foundation has made, and even more so how much work still needs to be done. I’m honored to be a part of this organisation and the initiative to create a 100% sustainable cocoa industry.”
