TOUTON PUBLISHES 2025-26 SUSTAINABILITY & PERFORMANCE REPORT
A year of transition: strengthening the teams and systems behind Touton’s trading and supply chains
Bordeaux, 09 October 2026 - Touton has published its 2025–2026 Sustainability and Performance Report, reflecting a year of structural change for the group. Its integration into Hartree and the appointment of a new executive management team mark the start of a new chapter. At the same time, investments in people, processes and data are strengthening the way Touton manages risk, serves customers and works with producers.
This transition unfolded amid sharp swings in cocoa and coffee prices, pressure on financing and logistics, and changing market requirements. Touton traded more than 400 000 metric tonnes of cocoa, coffee and ingredients, with products classified as sustainable accounting for 45% of total tonnage. The group honoured 100% of its contracts and continued to strengthen its readiness for the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
Adapt, guarantee and accelerate describes how Touton responded to these conditions and prepared for what comes next. Teams maintained continuity of supply as markets and customer needs shifted. Stronger quality management, supplier oversight, traceability and data systems help them assess risks, make informed decisions and demonstrate progress against the group’s commitments.
A new chapter for Touton
Hartree, an international trading company that shares Touton’s merchant culture and long-term outlook, brings greater financial capacity and new opportunities to develop the group’s activities. Touton retains its identity and the expertise built across its businesses and producing countries. Patrick de Boussac remains Chairman, while a new executive management team led by Olivier Lieutard takes the business forward.
Patrick de Boussac, President of Touton group, says:
“Three words capture the past year for me: transformation, transition and transmission. Joining Hartree brings new resources and opportunities while allowing Touton to retain its identity and merchant culture. After more than forty years with Touton, I am proud of what we have built together and confident in the new leadership team.”For Olivier Lieutard, Chief Executive Officer of Touton group, this next chapter builds on the role Touton plays between producers and customers:
“The widening gap between producers and consumers is, to us, a central concern, and it is precisely where our expertise and services make a tangible difference. Far from being a mere intermediary, the trader acts as a reliable counterparty, supporting market liquidity, price formation, risk management and confidence.”
Trading through changing markets
From a market perspective, Antoine Delsart, Managing Director and Director of the Cocoa Department, sums it up:
“Cocoa swung from a historic deficit to an estimated record surplus in barely two years; coffee entered a fifth consecutive year of deficit, compounded by an unprecedented tariff shock; and vanilla moved from scarcity to abundance, with prices back to levels not seen in a decade. Beneath these contrasting cycles runs a common thread: markets that no longer move in straight lines, and a trading model that must absorb volatility, regulation, the impact of climate change and geopolitics at once.”
Progress across the three priorities of PACT
The report is organised around PACT - Positive Agri Culture by Touton, the group’s corporate social responsibility strategy. Its three priorities connect the resilience of Touton’s business with that of the agricultural supply chains on which it depends.
Building a resilient agri-industry
Resilience starts with a clearer understanding of the supply chains Touton depends on. A more detailed carbon footprint now provides the baseline for its decarbonisation roadmap towards 2035, while nearly 415 000 cocoa and coffee plots, covering more than 600 000 hectares, had been mapped and verified by the end of the financial year. That focus on reliable systems extends to product quality: the group’s IFS Broker audit score rose to over 92%. In Madagascar, the first vanilla volumes produced under Touton’s PACT STANDARD reached the market, bringing its responsible sourcing approach to a new stage.
Joseph Larrose, Managing Director, responsible for Supply Chain Management, Innovation and Sustainability, explains:
“Better measurement must lead to better decisions and action on the ground. We are making our agroforestry programmes more consistent, strengthening forest protection and investing in landscape approaches. Beyond regulatory requirements, demand for carbon services remains strong, and we are developing new ways to help customers reduce emissions in their value chains.”
Nurturing a culture of trust
Trust depends on people who can recognise problems and respond to them. Within Touton, experienced colleagues pass on specialist expertise, while international mobility helps share knowledge across subsidiaries. In producing communities, specialist partners support Touton’s work on issues ranging from human rights to regenerative agriculture. Together, they strengthened child labour monitoring and remediation, with more than 62 000 producers assessed for child labour risk across five sourcing countries. The group also made its grievance mechanism more accessible and supported 870 active Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), widening access to savings and credit for more than 19 000 members. In Côte d’Ivoire, 45 school libraries supported through programmes developed with customers now benefit more than 12 000 pupils, improving access to education.
Fostering positive growth
For producers, greater resilience also means being able to manage a farm as a business and earn income beyond the main harvest. As high farm-gate prices increased working capital needs, the group strengthened its local banking base and secured the financing needed to fund buying seasons and pay producers on time. Nearly 62 000 producers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana participated in a Farmer Development Plan or coaching programme to support better farm management decisions. Alongside the savings associations, nearly 110 new income-generating activities involving some 2 500 participants helped households develop complementary sources of income.
The 2025–2026 Sustainability and Performance Report documents progress across Touton’s activities and supply chains, as well as the work ahead with its teams, producers, customers and partners.