Less than a year ago, it seem chocolate’s future teetered on the brink of extinction, a series of apocalyptic and man-made events dooming it to shortages and luxury pricing.

The Hershey Co. is expanding its cocoa sustainability program Learn to Grow through new public and private partnerships — and its goal is to create more sustainable cocoa by 2020.

If weather and diseases concerns weren’t enough for the upcoming cocoa bean harvest in the Ivory Coast, then the Ebola epidemic surely provides a real what-if fear — one that’s sending the price of cocoa beans soaring.

North America’s largest cocoa processor and chocolate ingredient supplier, Chicago-based Blommer Chocolate Co., has named Neal Murphy as its new cfo. Murphy’ s background spans financial leadership in both public and private businesses in the manufacturing and chemical industries, including CECO Environmental, Quaker Chemical and PQ Corporation.

Blommer has hired a new chief information officer (cio) as well as a new corporate manager for master planning and scheduling.

The majority of work done in many key agricultural areas falls on the hands and backs of women.

“These results demonstrate how we have been able to improve cocoa yields and quality, as well as the livelihoods of the farmers and their communities,“ says Grow Cocoa’s program director, Kevin Wilkins.

The thing about the 2020 sustainability goal is that everyone already knows there’s no way every single company will be able to get 100 percent “Fairtrade” chocolate.

According to most projections, about 60 percent of all cocoa grown in 2020 will need to be certified. That’s equals to about 2 million more tons. How does one go about doing that, one asks?

Robert Weidner has joined the Blommer commodity team as senior strategic sourcing manager.