The 1.5 Million Child Slaves Behind Your Chocolate Bar

[douglas9]

Next time you take a bite of a chocolate bar, consider the small hands that farmed the cocoa beans.

Industrial food heavyweights like Nestlé USA, Hershey and MARS Inc., rely on cocoa grown in Côte D’Ivoire, the Ivory Coast, to make their confections. And the West African nation relies on enslaved child laborers to farm its cocoa crops, a well-known fact in the candy world that keeps the cocoa at favorably low prices for the big companies.

A class-action civil suit brought against the big chocolate companies sheds stark light on the entire candy bar industry. It outlines the relationships between the candy makers and the cocoa farms in West Africa, which provide 70% of the world’s cocoa supply. Half is grown in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Most American chocolate is made from Ivory Coast cocoa beans.

https://www.dcreport.org/2021/02/23/the-1-5-million-child-slaves-behind-your-chocolate-bar/

[KarenS]

1. ok,,, this post made me go look,,,,

I buy and eat the bulk Columbian chocolate from Sprouts,,,,, whew,,,, it appears to come from family farms.

Lights need to be shone on child labor and forced labor and we as consumers need to step up and pay the prices required to produce these products.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Family farms are some of the absolute worst for child labor -- all crops, all countries.

[KarenS]

5. alrighty then. n/t

[mucifer]

2. Fair Trade vegan chocolates:

The list below reflects Food Empowerment Project’s (F.E.P.) most recent research on companies that make vegan products containing chocolate to find out if they source their chocolate from areas where the worst forms of child labor and/or slavery are the most prevalent.

This list is not comprehensive as we continue to reach out to more companies and update the list as we receive responses. When we contact the companies, we only ask them about their vegan chocolate products. Again, all of the companies make vegan chocolate products, but they may also sell products with non-vegan chocolate too. We do our best to provide accurate information, but we encourage you to read the ingredients to be sure.

click on the link for the list
https://foodispower.org/chocolate-list/#post-461

[Fiendish Thingy]

4. Lots of grey areas to navigate to determine if a company is using ethical practices

Here’s a decent source that examines some of the nuances around certification and environmental issues:

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/ethical-chocolate