Mars, the global confectionery giant behind brands such as M&M’s, Snickers and Galaxy, has committed $2.07 million over three years to expand access to affordable healthcare for up to 12,750 cocoa-farming households in Côte d’Ivoire, bringing healthcare support into its broader efforts to strengthen the resilience of communities within its agricultural supply chain.
Announced on 15 October 2026, the grant from the Mars Impact Fund will support Elucid Santé Côte d’Ivoire, the local implementation arm of Elucid, a social enterprise that integrates healthcare programmes into agricultural supply chains. The initiative, called Better Lives, Outcome and Opportunities through Medical Access (BLOOM), will run from 2026 to 2029.
The programme aims to help farming households enrol in Côte d’Ivoire’s national health insurance scheme and access additional support for healthcare costs not covered by the public system. By reducing upfront payments and administrative barriers, the initiative is designed to make medical treatment more accessible to families who might otherwise delay care because of cost.
Côte d’Ivoire’s universal health insurance scheme, known as Couverture Maladie Universelle (CMU), generally covers 70% of eligible medical costs at approved facilities, leaving beneficiaries responsible for the remaining 30%. For households with irregular agricultural income, even this remaining share can discourage visits to health facilities or force families to choose between healthcare and other essential expenses.
The BLOOM programme is intended to address that gap by combining national insurance enrolment with complementary support. Its focus reflects a wider challenge in agricultural communities: illness can affect more than household wellbeing. Medical expenses may consume money intended for farm inputs, school fees or food, while illness can also prevent farmers from carrying out time-sensitive work on their farms.
Mars said the partnership aligns with the Mars Impact Fund’s priority of strengthening resilience in communities from which it sources agricultural commodities. Cocoa is a key ingredient in the company’s confectionery business, making the economic and social conditions of cocoa-growing communities relevant to the stability of its supply chain.
The investment also forms part of a broader effort to strengthen healthcare provision in rural areas. According to Mars, approximately $2 million in matching funds from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is planned to support rural health infrastructure and expanded vaccination coverage. The associated interventions are intended to reach more than 200,000 people, including 150,000 children, through improvements to health facilities, mobile clinics, vaccination campaigns and preventive services. This funding is separate from the $2.07 million Mars Impact Fund grant to Elucid.
The approach builds on existing efforts to connect cocoa farmers with healthcare services. In September 2026, Gavi reported on a separate programme involving Elucid and other partners that was helping cocoa-growing families in Côte d’Ivoire access treatment and reduce out-of-pocket medical expenses. The report described farmers who had previously delayed care because they could not afford it, illustrating the financial barriers that healthcare-access programmes seek to address.
However, the new grant’s announced household target remains a programme objective rather than a completed result. Its impact will depend on successful insurance enrolment, the practical availability of healthcare services, the effectiveness of additional cost support and whether participating families can use the coverage when they need treatment.
NBF Insight
Mars’s investment highlights an important dimension of agricultural supply-chain resilience: the financial health of farming households is closely connected to their physical health.
Cocoa sustainability programmes often focus on farm productivity, income, traceability and environmental performance. But a household facing an unaffordable medical bill may have to redirect savings away from farm inputs, borrow money or postpone treatment. Healthcare costs can therefore weaken the same livelihoods that agricultural companies depend on for long-term commodity supply.
The model being supported in Côte d’Ivoire combines public insurance with private funding to address costs that formal coverage may leave behind. Its value will depend on whether families obtain timely treatment, reduce out-of-pocket spending and avoid financial shocks.
For the cocoa sector, the longer-term test is whether these programmes produce measurable improvements in household resilience and can be sustained beyond grant funding. If successful, healthcare financing could become a more integral part of responsible sourcing strategies, linking farmer welfare with the long-term stability of agricultural supply chains.
