Paper 2 Spring Term

Sophia Germond

Cocoa Beans are Cocoa Bad: Ethical Reasons as to why the

Chocolate Industry is Failing Humanity

If you ask someone on the average American street if they know

what chocolate is, I can guarantee you that nearly every single one of
them would say yes. If you ask them what chocolate is made of, you
may find more varying answers. Not many people are familiar with the
cocoa bean, harvested from the fruit of the cacao tree. And, if you ask
someone on an average American street where cacao trees are farmed
and their cocoa beans harvested, it is likely that few may know that
answer, other than a blunt reply somewhere along the lines of
wherever they grow coffee or South America, right? While these
responses are not entirely false, they are also not remotely true for the
cocoa bean industry as a whole.
The cacao tree is believed to have origins in the regions between
the Andes Mountains and the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in
South America, as well as the further north regions of modern-day
Honduras. The Aztecs cultivated the cacao trees and used the pulp of
the inside of the fruit, rather than the bean, for a fermented drink that
was widely popular, especially among nobles. The cocoa bean itself
was used as form of currency, as it was small and lightweight, prior to

Spanish colonization of Middle and South America. The Spanish then

introduced chocolate to the rest of Europe, beginning as a popular
beverage until later roasting and fermentation practices used on the
cocoa beans themselves gave way to what we in the twenty-first
century recognize as chocolate.
Today, chocolate is a commodity enjoyed by billions of people
around the world with a global industry worth over $80 billion USD. Its
available in dozens, if not hundreds, of different types and qualities.
Chocolate is a blended, diluted, fermented and sweetened form of the
cocoa bean, a fatty seed, surrounded by a rough rind, which is
harvested from the cacao tree. Cacao pods grow directly from the
trunk or large branches of the tree rather than the end of a branch,
and extreme care must be taken when harvesting the pod, as injuring
the junction between the stem and the tree will prevent future flowers
and pods from growing in that place. Harvesting season may occur at
any time of the year, as the cacao tree grows in hot, wet, tropical
climates, usually within 20 of the equator. Because of its climate
restrictions, the cocoa bean industry is primarily dominated by
equatorial nations such as Ecuador, Indonesia, and Ghana, with the
Ivory Coast as the worlds top producer of cocoa beans.
Not many people know where their chocolate is coming from
when they bite into a Hersheys bar, or pop a handful of M&Ms into

their mouth. Research into finding such sources is tricky, as most

companies dont necessarily display such information directly on their
website and keep that information rather classified. However, if we
look into the worlds lead cocoa bean producers, we can determine
where most of our chocolate is made.
Although the cacao tree is native to Central and South America,
the majority of cocoa bean production occurs in West Africa, which
supplies companies such as Hersheys, Nestl, and Mars. In the last
decade, journalists and researchers have exposed extensive use of
child labor on cocoa farms, and in some cases, slavery. In the Ivory
Coast, a journalist was allegedly killed for reporting on human rights
violations in the cocoa industry. Chocolate companies have become
incredibly hush-hush about their cocoa bean sources since the news of
child labor and trafficking has spread.
When the information of the crimes caused by the cocoa farms
was released, and public backlash threatened the companies that
bought their cocoa beans from slave labor and child labor farms,
representatives of the chocolate industry admitted the problem
existed, but insisted they should not to be held responsible since
chocolate companies didnt actually own the farms (Tiger, 2003).
Unsurprisingly, this response did not relieve the pressure and criticism
placed on the companies. In 2001 two United States congressmen,

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Representative Eliot Engel (D-New

York) proposed an addition to a bill that would require all chocolate and
cocoa bean products to bear a slave free label. The bill was a
success in the House of Representatives and passed. However,
because major chocolate corporations such as Hersheys, M&Ms, Mars,
and Nestl would not qualify for the slave-free label due to the
nature of the sources of their chocolate, if the bill managed to pass the
Senate, the companies would face major financial losses. Therefore,
the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, which represented the major
chocolate companies in the United States, hired former senators
George Mitchell and Bob Dole to lobby against it, effectively stopping
the bill. Later in 2001, Harkin and Engel created a solution with the
major chocolate companies to form the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a
document legally binding the major chocolate companies such as
Hersheys, Mars, and M&Ms, into a four year plan to end child slavery
in the chocolate industry by 2005, and by then, their products has to
be certified as slave free. Unsurprisingly, to this day, their promises
have not been made.
The irony here is that as this paper is written, I find myself eating
a bar of Awake Chocolate, partially for the caffeine kick, and partially
for the flavor. Once the chocolate bar was entirely gone, save for a
glob of it found on my keyboard much later, I began to wonder if what I
was eating was slave free. I hate finding out that I have been a

hypocrite in any situation possible, so I took it upon myself to clear my

name and lessen my guilt. After scouring their website, I found no
sources as to a possible parent company, or any sort of labeling for fair
trade. Upon further research, I found an online article from The Uniter,
a weekly urban journal for the University of Winnipeg, in Canada.
The article praises Awake Chocolate for its ingenuity and benefits for
university students. Like Portland State University, the University of
Winnipeg sells the chocolate around their campus. However, the
article states that Awake Chocolate does not have fair trade
certification, and despite its lack of certification, the University of
Winnipeg will continue to sell it in their bookstore, despite policy
against selling non-fair trade coffee and chocolate. So thus, my guilt
was well deserved, despite the Schrdinger-esque state of the
chocolates fair trade status (as fair trade certification may sometimes
not be granted for all chocolate that is, technically, slave and child
labor free), and despite my adoration for Awake Chocolate, I now find
myself unable to purchase it with a clear conscience. While ignorance
is bliss, with knowledge comes autonomy and power over the choices
one makes, particularly when it comes to a capitalist society such as
our own, wherein purchases and consumption directly influence the
balance of power in the global marketplace.
Slave and child labor goes unchecked within the food industry of
the United States, as so much of what we eat is imported from rural

countries with looser laws and higher rates of corruption in the middle
to lower levels of government (not to say there isnt corruption within
the US governmentthe ability for chocolate companies to buy former
senators to affect the passage of laws shows exactly that), and so little
of it, if any at all, is reported on or labeled on packaging. The
chocolate industry maintains exorbitant power and status in the global
marketplace and continues to go unchecked. The cacao tree and the
cocoa bean have been manipulated, and our society faces dire
ramifications if we continue to allow what should be a luxury treat be
brought to us by the most horrible violations of basic human rights.
This paper was intended to explore the history of chocolate, but upon
learning about the crimes committed by the creators of our favorite
treats and luxury desert items, I felt that writing about the cocoa
beans gritty hidden history and scandals would better serve our
principles for sustainability in the global food marketplace. Slave and
child labor is an epidemic, especially in the farming industry, and in
order for us as a society to happily and consciously consume our
favorite chocolate treats, we must demand all companies end their
support for slave and child labor cocoa bean farming first.References
1. Samphir, Harrison. "CAFFEINATED CHOCOLATE: ENERGYS NEW
FLAVOUR." The Uniter. University of Winnipeg, 24 Oct. 2012.
Web.
2. Schrage, Elliot J., and Anthony P. Ewing. "The Cocoa Industry and
Child Labour." Journal of Corporate Citizenship 2005.18 (2005):
99-112. Web.

3. Tiger, Caroline. "Bittersweet Chocolate." Salon. Salon Media Group,

14 Feb. 2003. Web. 07 May 2015.
4. "Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry." Food
Empowerment Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2015.
<http://www.foodispower.org/slavery-chocolate/>.
5. "The Earliest Chocolate Drink of the New World." Penn Museum.
University of Pennsylvania, 13 Nov. 2007. Web. 07 May 2015.
<http://www.penn.museum/press-releases/739-the-earliestchocolate-drink-of-the-new-world.html>.