In case you are not a fan of chocolate, you should know that you belong to a small group of people with specific food preferences. According to some statistics Americans consume almost 18% of chocolate produced every year in the world (in terms of value) which is more than $18 billion. It doesn’t really matter whether you are Healthline in candy bars, cakes, ice cream, milkshakes or other forms, this is a very popular treat.
In addition, to the extra sugar found in most of these products and some suspicious ingredients used by popular brands, there is another thing that should concern the average consumer of chocolates. The majority of adult Americans buy chocolate even though they don’t know its origin and who actually made it.
You are probably thinking that this doesn’t matter as long as the chocolate is tasty, but the truth is that you should be concerned because a huge number of manufacturers are relying on child slavery in order to make chocolate found in our stores.
More than 6 months ago, several companies including giants like Nestle, Mars and Hershey have faced a lawsuit. This lawsuit accused the companies for providing false information to the consumers and actually supporting child slavery in Africa. In other words, consumers are unintentionally supporting this illegal activity by buying their products.
Although this lawsuit is relatively new, there were some reports that indicated such illegal activities in the world’s chocolate industry for more than a decade.
Chocolate have one basic ingredient – cocoa – which is mostly produced in West Africa. Ghana and Ivory Coast are the two countries that produce the majority of cocoa in this part of the world.
In fact, more than 60% of the cocoa supply in the world comes from these two countries. This means that most companies that produce chocolate are cooperating with West African growers of cocoa. The majority of this ingredient is grown on very small farms by people who live below poverty lines and in some cases by children.
15 years ago, the main players in the chocolate industry have confirmed that they are determined to stop these activities in Ghana and Ivory Coast till 2005. However, their plans were not going so well and they had to set a new deadline – 2020 which means additional 15 years.
There are hundreds of children who are forced to live in these small farms away from civilization where they spend most of their days working (sometimes more than 100 hours per week). What is even more shocking is that many of them are victims of regular beating and this was confirmed by several freed children who decided to talk about this ordeal in a documentary called Slavery: A Global Investigation. A formed child save known as Aly Diabate said that the eventually get used to the everyday beatings. They were severely punished if they made any mistake during the production process.
In order to stop funding child slavery, you should avoid the products of these seven well-known companies:
- Mars
- Hershey
- Nestle
- Godiva
- ADM Cocoa
- Kraft
- Fowler’s Chocolate.
Even though there are information like this revealed every month and consumers are making great pressure on the manufacturers, the truth is that child labor is growing in this industry. Some statistics show that almost 50% more children are found on cocoa farms in 2015 compared to 2009. The reason is simple – the companies we have mentioned above are still using cocoa produced with the help of child labor.
In case you experience a chocolate craving, you can count on many other companies who are responsible and use ingredients that are produced and grown in areas where child labor doesn’t exist:
- Chocosol
- Giddy Yoyo
- Clif Bar
- Koppers Chocolate
- Green and Black’s
- Denman Island Chocolate
- L.A. Burdick Chocolates
- Montezuma’s Chocolates
- Gardners Chocolate
- Kailua Candy Company
- Newman’s Own Organics
- Rapunzel Pure Organics
- Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company
- Cloud Nine.
Via David Wolfe
