Glossary

Child Labor

Child labor is defined as work for which children are too young or which is dangerous or exploitative, harms physical or mental development or prevents children from attending school. It deprives children of their childhood and violates children's rights that apply worldwide.

Lindt & Sprüngli strongly condemns all forms of child labor.

By improving the livelihoods of farmers and their communities, the risk of child labor can be reduced. For this reason, the goal of our sustainability program, the Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program, is to improve farmers' livelihoods. The focus on traceability and verification within our Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program also enables us to identify and address potential cases of child labor.

As part of the Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program, we have defined clear guidelines and an action plan to combat child labor.

Cocoa bean

Cocoa beans are the seeds of the cocoa tree. The cocoa beans are the heart and soul of fruit and the basis for making chocolate; they are used to make cocoa powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass and finally chocolate. There are generally 40 to 60 beans in each cocoa fruit pod.

Cocoa fruit

The cocoa fruit grows on the trunks of the cocoa tree and takes four to five months to grow and another month to ripen. Altogether, it takes five to eight months from bud to ripe fruit.

The pod is green while maturing and turns yellow, orange, red or purple when ripe.

The cocoa fruit pods can vary significantly in size, from 10 to 40cm in length.

Cocoa mass

Cocoa mass is a thick, chewy, and dark brown paste that forms the basis for all chocolate products.

Cocoa nibs

Cocoa nibs are cocoa bean fragments that have been separated from their shells, broken into smaller pieces, and roasted.

Cocoa tree (Theobroma Cacao)

The tropical tree that produces cocoa beans. Theobroma means "food of the gods".

The cocoa tree is very demanding when it comes to climatic conditions, which are only found in countries in the latitudes between 20 degrees north to 20 degrees south of the equator.

The plant is a moisture-loving evergreen tropical tree that needs shade. Cocoa originates from seeds. These seeds germinate and produce good trees when they come from pods that are no more than 15 days green. Criollo and Forastero cocoa trees take longer to produce fruit. Hybrid varieties can be harvested three to four years after planting.

Factors such as farm management, soil type, diversity of cocoa trees, climate, diseases or pests have a huge impact on productivity. 30 years after planting, the yield of cocoa trees begins to decline. Then rehabilitation in the form of replanting or grafting is necessary to restore the original condition.

Cocoa varieties

As with wine or coffee, there are different cocoa varieties. The main varieties are Criollo, Trinitario (fine flavored cocoa) and Forastero (consumer cocoa). The varieties also have sub-varieties which are often of regional origin (through mutations, etc.). In the case of Criollo, for example, there is Porcelana, which is grown in Venezuela.

Conche

The name of a machine and process of stirring, aerating, and heating chocolate in a certain way, making it particularly smooth. Invented by Rodolphe Lindt, one of Lindt & Sprüngli’s founding fathers, in 1879.

Consumer Cocoa

Cocoa with robust, often flat flavors (usually of the Forastero variety). Consumer cocoa accounts for the largest share, about 90-95%, of the world's total cocoa production. Ghana is the second largest cocoa producer in the world, producing about 800,000 tons of Forastero variety consumer cocoa annually – almost 20% of the global crop.

Criollo

Fine cocoa bean and one of the three main cocoa bean varieties. Criollo is the rarest, most disease-prone and therefore most expensive of the three varieties Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario. It grows in milder climates in South America and requires very fertile soil. The beans are very aromatic and have a low acid content, which is an advantage in the production of fine chocolate products.