Do you know where your chocolate comes from?
Today’s blog is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR and Administration at SafeSourcing.
It seems with nearly every holiday, there is usually a common chocolate treat associated with it. Whether it is chocolate hearts for Valentine’s Day, chocolate bunnies for Easter, or hot chocolate for Christmas, chocolate has become not just common, but a standard for many of our holidays. Not only that, but chocolate is something many of us eat often without the holiday celebration, from chocolate chip cookies and granola bars to a candy bar at your local gas station.
So where does all this chocolate come from? While most of us can find chocolate in nearly every store you might visit, we first we need to find out who makes all this chocolate. Globally, the top chocolate companies are Mars Inc., Ferrero Group, Mondelez International, Meiji Co. Ltd., Hershey Co., and Nestle. These companies have remained the top in the industry for numerous years and account for approximately 60 billion dollars in sales. That’s a lot of chocolate!
While chocolate is a sweet treat many of us enjoy, there has recently been some bitter discussion on where chocolate comes from. This has led to some investigative reports looking into the chocolate industry and the source of their cocoa. An estimated 70% of the world’s cocoa comes from Ghana and the Ivory Coast which are both West African countries and are known to not only have vast government corruption, but also known to use child labor as well as slavery in their cocoa farms. This claim is difficult to verify, however, because journalists and reporters are often barred from visiting these farms or highly supervised while there, being only allowed to show the area in a positive way.
There has recently been a change in the chocolate industry, though. There are many chocolate companies that ethically source their cocoa. No matter where you live, there are likely a number of chocolatiers near you that use cocoa from farms that provide humane conditions for their workers and that is something extra sweet to think about.
For more information on how you can ethically source chocolate, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.
References:
- http://safesourcing.com/ContactUs/tabid/60/language/en-US/Default.aspx
- https://www.candyindustry.com/2020/global-top-100-candy-companies
- https://foodispower.org/human-labor-slavery/slavery-chocolate/
- Ethically sourced chocolate: http://www.slavefreechocolate.org/ethical-chocolate-companies
