In the world of industrial chocolate, the Chocolate Scorecard 2026 provides an independent benchmark every year. This year's ranking, promoted by Australian NGO Be Slavery Free and now in its seventh edition, evaluated forty-nine producers and retailers, covering approximately 90 per cent of the global cocoa supply chain. The criteria examined range from traceability to child labour, from deforestation to farmers' income. Ritter Sport placed third, climbing one position compared to 2025. In a sector where 80 per cent of companies still do not guarantee a sufficient income for farmers, this is no small achievement — and it is even more remarkable for a family-run business far smaller than many other stock-exchange-listed giants. As Thomas Straub, managing director of Ritter Sport Italia, explained, this ranking is not designed for the end consumer: it is first and foremost an internal indicator, a tool for understanding where and how there is still room for improvement.

24,000 farmers and a company-owned plantation

Ritter Sport's highest score in the Scorecard 2026 relates to the "Traceability and Transparency" category: in 99 per cent of cases, the company is now able to trace purchased cocoa back to the individual farm of origin. This is far from a trivial achievement, given the volatility of harvests and the complexity of tropical supply chains. The strategy rests on seven partnership programmes with local producers in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Nicaragua and Peru (the first of which dates back to 1990), involving approximately 24,000 farmers in long-term relationships. The most advanced point of this model is "El Cacao", a company-owned plantation in Nicaragua acquired in 2012 and now spanning 2,500 hectares: half dedicated to cultivation using an agroforestry system, the other half preserved as a nature reserve.
As Petra Fix, global sustainability communication at Ritter Sport, explains, the estate generates two concrete benefits: coverage of 20 per cent of the company's total cocoa requirements and direct control over working conditions and environmental impact. Since 2018, moreover, Ritter Sport has used exclusively 100 per cent Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade International certified cocoa across its entire product range: it is the first major company in the world to have done so.

Energy consumption and packaging

There are further reasons to attest that Ritter Sport's supply chain is a responsible one. The company has set a target of reducing emissions by 42 per cent by 2030, certified by the Science Based Targets initiative. It currently covers more than half of its electricity needs with self-generated renewable energy (including wind and solar installations and a solar park in Bavaria with over 7,300 panels), and since 2023 has used electric trucks for logistics between its facilities.
In parallel, at the Waldenbuch production site, Ritter Sport is about to install five large heat pumps that will almost entirely convert the company's heating system to a high-efficiency, low-emission technology. Two units are already operational, while the remaining three will be activated during the course of the year.
On the packaging front, however, the work is not yet done. Petra Fix is clear on this point: the current polyethylene film is technically recyclable, but this does not guarantee that it will actually be recycled. Tests on a paper-based packaging solution, begun in 2020, have not yet produced a scalable solution that meets food safety standards. All that said, third place in the Scorecard is a genuine achievement, obtained in a context of highly volatile cocoa prices and declining harvests. And yet, as the ranking itself reminds us, the bar keeps rising and continuous year-on-year improvement is essential.