Only 17 out of 82 companies investigated were found to use suppliers that paid cocoa farmers enough to live on
THE GUARDIAN
Leading chocolate brands have been criticised for having “inadequate” ethical standards in their cocoa supply chain in a report from Ethical Consumer. Only 17 out of 82 brands investigated by the consumer organisation were judged to be using chocolate from suppliers that ensured farmers were paid enough to live on.
As a result, there is a risk that Advent calendars, chocolate Santas and other Christmas treats will have been produced with child labour. About 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from west Africa, and about six in 10 cocoa-growing households in Ghana are estimated to use child labour, with four in 10 in Ivory Coast.
Ethical Consumer recommended Tony’s Chocolonely, Divine and Chocolat Madagascar among the brands which paid Fairtrade International or Rainforest Alliance rates or higher, and use chocolate made in the country of origin rather than from imported beans. That helps the economies of cocoa-producing countries rather than European manufacturers.
It rated Mars, Nestlé and Mondelēz, which owns Cadbury, as poor and “brands to avoid”, while Ferrero was rated poor.
Each has a sustainability scheme, but the researchers said that these schemes “tend to cover just a proportion of the company’s cocoa suppliers”, which means that some farmers do not benefit.
Last year, Channel 4’s Dispatches found that 10-year-old children were using machetes to harvest cocoa destined for Mondelēz’s supply chain.
The 82 brands were also measured on tax conduct, use of palm oil, deforestation and plastic and packaging.
Jasmine Owens at Ethical Consumer said: “The chocolate industry is incredibly unequal, with many cocoa farmers living in poverty while international chocolate companies are raking in billions of pounds.
“Most of the world’s chocolate is grown in west Africa, and the conditions for farmers are in general really appalling. But it’s European and UK consumers who eat most of it. So we really do have a huge amount of power and responsibility over conditions for farmers in west Africa because we’re the reason why they’re harvesting the cocoa.”
Owens said that buying chocolate from brands such as Fairafric, ’57 Chocolate and Chocolat Madagascar was expensive and could be hard to get hold of but they were good “as a treat or a present”, while Tony’s Chocolonely was widely available in supermarkets and “really trying to change the chocolate industry”.
Joke Aerts, of Tony’s Open Chain, the company’s supply chain platform, said it was trying “to put human rights at the core of purchasing practices” by using traceable cocoa beans, paying the living income reference price (the amount a typical farmer needs to make to be able to live), helping farming co-ops to become more professional, working with them for at least five-year periods, and helping farmers improve crop yields so they had less incentive to clear land to plant more cacao trees.
