Avoiding Slave Chocolate

Most cocoa beans are grown in West Africa; Seventy per cent.  Two countries, Ghana and the Ivory produce Sixty Per Cent of the total.

Despite the fact they earn a about $73 billion dollars from the trade, they don’t compare to  the chocolate company, Nestlé’s,  which has over $100 billion in sales.

Most of the beans bought by Nestle, and the other companies are grown, picked, packed by child slavery.

This face has attracted the attention of the world.

There were protests, marches, petitions, boycotts, and after all the excitement, a treaty was written and the big chocolate makers agreed to eradicate the worst forms of child slavery (defined by the International Labor Organization’s Convention No. 182, by July 1, 2005).

Demanding time, they had the  deadline to implement this treaty to 2008.  Then, to 2010.  It has yet been extended again… to 2020!

Besides actual slavery it is now become more usual  for children are used as free labour by their own families.

However, that the big companies use them, profit from them has become the focus.  The bad press has had its effect, to some extent.

Nestlé has very publicly created a Cocoa Plan, Hershey has its 21st-Century Plan.

Banding together in the World Cocoa Foundation, 10 of the largest chocolate companies formed CocoaAction, which is supposed to assist the farmers and help them boost productivity without children.

Just as the ‘Treaty’, this ‘Plan’ is not happening.

As of today, there are  2.1 million children enslaved in the chocolate industry.  This is 21% increase over the 1.75 million identified five years ago.

Some private citizens have taken the matter into their own hands and filed law suits against the Top Three chocolate companies;  Hershey, Mars, and Nestlé,  stating they would not have purchased the chocolate if they knew it was grown by child labour/slavery.

While cases bobble around the court and treaties are made, a lot of people have decided not to buy slave chocolate.   The companies, Hershey, Mars, Nestle, ADM Cocoa, Godiva, Fowler’s Chocolate and Kraft  were named in last year’s Halloween warning of Slave Chocolate.

Companies that didn’t use child labour in 2004 were Clif Bar, Green and Black’s, Koppers Chocolate,  L.A. Burdick Chocolates,  Denman Island Chocolate, Gardners Candie, Cloud Nine, Montezuma’s Chocolates, Newman’s Own Organics, Kailua Candy Company,Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company, Rapunzel Pure Organics,  and The Endangered Species Chocolate Company

Green & Black was an excellent company.  It was ‘Green’ because it was organic, and it was ‘Black’, meaning Slavery free.

Then…

“I regret selling Green & Blacks to Cadbury. It was a mistake. A great shame. I can say that now that Cadbury has pretty much disappeared, bought out by Kraft and now Mondalez.”  said Mr William Kendall, who was in charge of Green & Black.

Cadbury was the number one user of slave chocolate. In 2005 it purchased Green & Black. This was a great way out for them.  Then Cadbury itself was sold to Kraft, which as late as 2015 was listed as a company that used child labour.

Then is was sold to another company which produces Toblerone… and who know what kind of labour was used?

When buying chocolate, unless one lives where cocoa is grown  one doesn’t know where it comes from.

In the Caribbean we grow the beans.  We use them.  Any chocolate we have on the shelves which isn’t Hersey or Mars or Nestle is probably coming from Trinidad or Santo Domingo.

We used to have our own brand, Highgate, but that was sold, and it hasn’t been seen since.

The tragedy is that the outcry against slave chocolate has quieted because of the mere words the companies using slaves has offered.