Hundreds of Thousands of Tonnes of Coffee and Cocoa at Risk of Destruction in EU Due to Changes in Legislation

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coffee and cocoa stored in EU warehouses are at risk of being destroyed due to a new law on deforestation that came into force in June. This was reported by the Financial Times.

The law prohibits the sale of products in the EU, including coffee, cocoa, palm oil and rubber, which were grown in areas of deforestation.

At the same time, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), one of the main platforms for trading coffee and cocoa futures, and the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation, have warned that coffee and cocoa produced or stored in the EU during the transition period may be declared non-compliant and must be sold outside the EU or destroyed.

Around 70% of the world's cocoa comes from Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, where deforestation and child labour are widespread, and the world's top coffee producers are Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Indonesia.

As of the summer of 2023, almost 200,000 tonnes of cocoa and 150,000 tonnes of coffee beans were stored in warehouses across Europe.

The EU's rules are seen as a crucial part of its Green Deal environmental legislation and aim to prevent consumption in the EU from causing more damage to countries outside the EU.

The European Commission is currently in talks with EU member states to find a solution to store crops imported during the transition period.

However, the EC refused to comment on the progress of the negotiations.

In March, it was reported that the image of the Matterhorn mountain peak would be removed from the packaging of the famous Toblerone chocolate after part of the product's production was moved outside Switzerland.

Since 1908, Toblerone has been produced in the Swiss capital Bern. Mondelez, which has owned Toblerone since 2012, announced last year that from the end of 2023 it would move part of the production to its plant in Slovakia, which also produces the Milka chocolate brand, which was originally produced in Switzerland.

After that, the chocolate will no longer be legally able to be called "Swiss".

As The Gaze previously reported, Mondelez is also facing a boycott in Scandinavia over its activities in Russia. Scandinavian entrepreneurs refuse to cooperate with the American multinational Mondelez International because of its refusal to cease operations in Russia.