The first production facility for organic cocoa “Made in Switzerland”
PRONATEC AG: bio.inspecta client of many years’ standing starts up Switzerland’s first organic-only cocoa factory
In May 2022 PRONATEC AG, a client of bio.inspecta for many years now, started operations at the first production facility for organic cocoa “Made in Switzerland”.
PRONATEC, a family-owned company with various production sites in Switzerland, is a veritable pioneer of the global organic and fair trade movement. It supplies high-quality, certified feedstocks and semi-finished products to the international food and cosmetics industries. PRONATEC nurtures long-term partnerships with cooperatives in the countries of origin of cocoa, sugar, vanilla and spices. This contributes to improving the living conditions of smallholder families.
In May this year, our long-standing client integrated the cocoa bean processing stage into its processes. The first organic-only plant for organic cocoa products started up in Beringen near Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The plant will process 15'000 tonnes of organic cocoa beans annually to the three semi-finished products: cocoa mass, cocoa butter and cocoa powder. This also boosts domestic value added for Swiss specialities such as chocolate products.
The organic cocoa processing plant is a response to a trend that is becoming increasingly popular among consumers: the products they buy should be not only sustainable, they should also be traceable to the smallholder farmer. By taking the plant into operation, the entire value chain from bean procurement to production and sales is now in the hand of PRONATEC.
More information is at https://pronatec.com/en/cocoa-production/.
