Sweeten the holiday spirit with greater visibility into your chocolate supply chain

1 December 2022

The chocolate market in Europe is poised to grow by $ 14.47 billion during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of almost 5% during the forecast period.

A season of sweetness

Happiness is just a box of chocolates away, and it is that time of the year again when shelves packed with new and colourful boxes ring in the holiday spirit. Although the chocolate market saw sales dip during the pandemic, people across the globe are now reinventing how they consume their much-loved comfort food. Consumers are seeking better quality cocoa in higher amounts in their chocolate. Rising demand and the growing popularity of dark and organic chocolates mean the shelves must always remain stocked before Santa comes to town. And 2022 and its aftermath have highlighted the need to have a more resilient supply. That is why European chocolate makers are adopting proactive approaches to optimise their supply chain within operational constraints.

Visibility is the key to ensuring businesses satisfy every sweet tooth.

Raw cocoa belongs to the ‘most sensitive’ category of cargo. It needs to be protected from unfavorable external factors as it can easily absorb moisture. Typically, it takes about 26 days on a ship, covering 5,919 miles, for raw cocoa from Ghana to reach a production unit in Europe, with multiple halts and warehousing changes in between. There’s a lot that can go wrong in the process. Unexpected temperature fluctuations or supply chain disruptions can make the cocoa unusable on arrival. Cocoa production has also taken a hit in places like Ghana due to rough weather causing output fluctuations that may not meet market demand.

While chocolate manufacturers cannot control the weather, they can offset tough times by optimising business potential.

A sweet aftertaste

The volatile global supply chain market has forever changed the rules of global trade. They have unleashed the untapped potential of digital innovation to help businesses become more data-driven and ultimately, more agile. Supply chain visibility plays a crucial role in improving efficiency, reducing operational costs, improving inventory management, and increasing speed to market. While some present-day supply chain solutions provide visibility, with multiple logistics parties involved, data is still very fragmented. Integration is heavily dependent on stakeholders providing information manually, and therefore real-time decision making is not yet the norm.

To truly integrate, logistics teams will need to accelerate their digital transformation, implement technologies that continuously monitor systems and processes, and glean meaningful insights from this new data-driven approach.

Here’s how Maersk can help

According to a report published in Gartner, successful price optimisation and management implementation can increase margins by 50 basis points or more and increase your revenue by 2-4%. With Maersk, you can sync your chocolate supply chain from start to finish. By incorporating real-time tracking and monitoring solutions, you can take control of each stage of your shipment and optimise supply chain flows.

Let data intelligence and expertise optimise your future supply chain.

Global Supply Chain Management solutions breaks down silos and connects people, processes, and technologies to provide chocolate manufacturers with end-to-end visibility, real-time intelligence, and the confidence to make smarter decisions. You can also utilise our analytics tools to make better, quicker business decisions in response to peak season disruptions. In addition to our technology solutions, our people bring industry expertise and commitment to every interaction, helping companies manage relationships at every stage of the supply chain, especially during festivities. Because we know that the holidays won’t be as sweet without your chocolates.

Better transparency

Driven by control tower professionals, process expertise and large crowd-source ecosystem, we integrate all trading partners and data in one closed-loop to drive predictive visibility and traceability.

Better reach with a controlled asset network

Powered by a controlled asset network, our multimodal options enable agile responses, streamlining your supply chain for optimal results.

Better decision-making

Choose from our wide suite of capabilities designed to drive business outcomes through your supply chain. We help you make informed decisions on-the-fly with our expertise and support. At every link in your supply chain.

Contact us to know how Maersk visibility solutions can enable complete logistics visibility and control to create a steady flow of supply chain, this festive season.

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