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Map: Cocoa to Chocolate from The Guardian

Cargill has announced that beginning October 1 it will map all aspects of its North American high oleic canola supply chain. The program will walk customers and consumers through the whole supply chain: From seed development and the farmers who grow the canola, through oil processing and packaging, on to the foodservice operators and food ingredient manufacturers who use the product, and, finally, to consumers.

Mars, the US food processing company, has initiated a supply chain sustainability effort that starts with over five million cocoa farmers and promises to deliver a "holistic program from farm to factory."

Several factors motivate these -- and similar -- significant investments.  "Understanding where food comes from is a priority for consumers,” is the explanation Cargill gives. Safe and fair sourcing is an increasingly important competitive attribute across the food sector.  But for many food processors it is also a mechanism that can be leveraged to better understand and influence the strategic horizon for supply.

In the case of cocoa, while demand is sky-rocketing, production has actually been declining. How can different participants in a product's commercial ecosystem collaborate to better match supply with demand?