Our Commitment to Responsibly Sourced Cocoa

Our ChocMarks range is 100% Fairtrade and through the pioneering Shared ImPact initiative, we’re already delivering significant support to farmers at the Yeyasso cooperative in Côte d’Ivoire, boosting livelihoods, strengthening climate resilience, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our cocoa supply.

M&S was the first retailer to partner with Fairtrade on their new Shared ImPact sourcing approach, directly investing the Fairtrade Premium from all our ChocMarks bars in the Yeyasso Co-operative in Côte D’Ivoire. We can ensure this financial traceability through Fairtrade’s Mass Balance Plus system.

Our commitment provides farmers with greater security, guaranteeing a fair price through the Fairtrade Minimum Price and additional Fairtrade Premium, which cooperatives can reinvest in their communities.

We’re also supporting farmers on their journey towards achieving a living income. As part of Fairtrade’s Living Income Programme, we invest £140k each year into core productivity and quality work, income diversification and climate resilience. When market prices fall, payment of the Living Income Reference Price helps protect farmers from income shocks, while the programme also builds cooperative capacity so Yeyasso can provide long-term services for its members.

We are proud to be a long-standing member – and the only retail partner – of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), we help fund leading child labour prevention work across cocoa-growing communities. Through our membership, we support funding ICI’s work to develop and test new approaches to tackle child labour and forced labour in cocoa and to support the adoption of good practices across the cocoa sector.

We were also the first UK retailer to fund Fairtrade’s Child Labour Prevention and Remediation programme, supporting projects in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire that improve access to education, from building classrooms to renovating schools.

Together, these commitments support farmer livelihoods, strengthen communities and help secure a sustainable future for cocoa.

Disclaimer: This report provides further insights about Yeyasso Cooperative and their investments of Fairtrade Premium as part of the Shared ImPact initiative. The Fairtrade Premium figures for 2025 in this report are based on planned spend in 2025, so should be interpreted as indicative only. Final data will be shared in 2026, and these figures may change in the future''

In January 2025, M&S became the first retailer to launch Fairtrade's ‘Mass Balance Plus’ traceability pilot for our Choc Marks and Swiss range, in partnership with our supplier. For these bars, 100% of the Fairtrade Premium and cocoa bean volume equivalents will be purchased from Yeyasso cooperative, which will be audited independently to ensure M&S funds reach the cooperative.  

 Yeyasso cooperative was founded in August 2006 in Man, Cote d’Ivoire, and is made up of 5009 cocoa farmers. They are using Fairtrade Premium for a variety of projects, ranging from the installation of local maternity wards and building teacher housing to supporting farmers with organic fertilisers, good agricultural practice training and crop diversification projects.  

 “We thank M&S for this great initiative that will allow us to make further investments… For us, it will be a question of offering maternity wards in localities where there are not yet any, increasing cash to producers or fighting against child labour by facilitating children’s schooling.” Yeo Moussa, Director General at Yeyasso 

 “With the support of M&S I will be able to enrol my children in school, have the means to pay people to help me clean my farm and provide for the food needs of my home." Anne Marie Diomande, Poyayeye Women’s Association  

This image is of Diomande Anne-Marie, cocoa farmer and member of the Poyayeye Women’s Association, Yeyasso, by the Fairtrade Foundation.