Bean to Bar

Lindt & Sprüngli is one of the few chocolate manufacturers adopting a bean to bar approach, which allows us to oversee the entire production process – from the selection and sourcing of cocoa beans to the production of cocoa mass (also called cocoa liquor) and the finished product.

We believe that physical traceability of cocoa is strongly linked to sustainability. We take a differentiated approach for traceability of cocoa beans and cocoa butter due to their different supply chain characteristics. Traceability of cocoa beans begins on the cocoa farm and does not end until the beans reach our production sites. We only purchase cocoa beans from countries and farmers which are part of our own sustainability program – the Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program. It continues with producing cocoa mass in our own production facilities, and extends to processing the chocolate and ultimately marketing and distributing our quality products. The traceability of our cocoa bean supply chain is the key foundation of our Program for improving livelihoods of farmers and their families in the cocoa origin countries in the long term. As a bean to bar manufacturer, we have extensive expertise, including in the selection of high-quality beans, the technological know-how in the processing of our own cocoa mass as well as the chocolate production at our own factories. This differentiates us from most other chocolate manufacturers and enables us to produce our premium quality chocolate. For our responsibly sourced cocoa butter, we aim for a physical traceability approach based on segregation: Conventional and sustainable cocoa are strictly separated and the origin of delivered butter batches are known when delivered to Lindt & Sprüngli. In the segregation model, beans delivered by the Lindt & Sprüngli farmer groups to the suppliers get mixed, at supplier level, with other beans originating from farmer groups who also have a sustainability program in place. This means that while all the cocoa butter delivered to Lindt & Sprüngli from a sustainability program under the segregation model originates from sustainable sources, we are not guaranteed that the cocoa beans delivered by our own farmer groups to the suppliers will end up in the cocoa butter we purchase.

Our goal is to source all cocoa products - beans, butter, powder and chocolate mass - from sustainable programs by 2025.