Barry Callebaut and Arla Foods launch dairy partnership

Barry Callebaut, the Swiss-headquartered chocolate and cocoa group, has announced a three-year collaboration with Arla Foods under its FarmAhead customer-partnership programme. The project is the company’s first dairy partnership aimed at addressing climate emissions in its supply chain.

The programme will initially cover skimmed milk powder purchased from the UK. Arla will provide annual primary carbon-footprint data for the dairy volumes supplied to Barry Callebaut, with the information connected to farms producing the milk.

Dairy is a significant ingredient in the global milk-chocolate market. Barry Callebaut said the farm-level information would support its efforts to reduce Scope 3 emissions and help expand decarbonisation measures across dairy farms that supply both companies.

The collaboration forms part of Barry Callebaut’s Net Zero roadmap and its wider Net Zero Chocolate Solutions. Those solutions use partnerships with customers and suppliers to address the full supply-chain footprint of cocoa and chocolate products.

“Decarbonizing dairy is essential to reducing our carbon footprint, and this partnership is a testament to our commitment to driving meaningful progress on our Net Zero journey,” said Tilmann Silber, Barry Callebaut’s head of net zero. He said the arrangement would improve visibility in the dairy supply chain and support the development of measures linked to the company’s Scope 3 targets.

Silber added that the project brought sustainability and sourcing together through a long-term relationship with suppliers and farmers. Barry Callebaut said reducing emissions from dairy was a complex task requiring cooperation across the value chain, while the partnership would connect climate objectives with activity at farm level.

Gabriela Aramayo, Barry Callebaut’s responsible-sourcing lead for dairy, described the work with Arla as a step towards developing “credible and measurable lower-carbon dairy sourcing solutions”.