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I confess: I have a chocolate addiction. Maybe it’s the genetic make-up of my brain, my female hormones or just 8 years of working retail and having displays of chocolate bars staring me in the face for hours on end. In any case, the idea of living without chocolate is abhorrent to me.
I’ve also known about the involvement of abusive child labour in chocolate production for a few years, and I’m going to admit for the first time that I flat out ignored it because I didn’t want to stop eating chocolate. But there’s something about knowing that children are being beaten and abused just so that I can satisfying a caffeine-craving that seems morally off to me.
I wanted to write about whether avoiding this is something I can realistically ask of other people and realistically ask of myself. Because I know I am not going to stop eating chocolate.
The first bit of research I did was not encouraging. The chocolate companies that were listed as fair trade and slave-free were all companies that I had never heard of before. I’m sure they make delicious chocolate, but there is something about a familiar chocolate bar that really satisfies my cravings.
Furthermore, how can I possibly suggest to you that you should make out a list of names of these chocolate bars so that the next time you have a desire for chocolate, you can pull it out and spend hours looking for these uncommon names? There is nothing satisfying about that scenario.
And ask you to remember the names without a list? Don’t worry – I’m not that crazy. We all have enough important things to remember, without unfamiliar chocolate bars added on.
So I looked some more. What I found was a website called Better World Shopper that has listings of companies that make all kinds of products and ranks them according to five key issues: the environment, human rights, animal protection, community involvement and social justice.
I looked up the chocolate companies for you and some of the companies they rate are quite well-known. I list the ratings at the end of the article.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that Fair Trade certified chocolate – which is different than the ratings by Better World Shopper – is widely available.
In order to get Fair Trade certification, the producer has to meet rigorous production and trade standards and commit to them long-term. The specifics of these standards can be found at http://transfair.ca/ and http://www.transfairusa.org. You can look up local stores that sell Fair Trade certified chocolate on the Fair Trade websites with your zip or postal code.
Also, some large corporations that are known for carrying Fair Trade products at some, if not all locations include: Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops (chocolate ice cream), Costco, Loblaws, Price Chopper, Sam’s Club, Ten Thousand Villages and Wal-Mart.
So, there are a lot of options for buying chocolate without supporting a system of child slavery. There’s no reason for us to turn our heads when we hear about the horrors of cocoa production, and it isn’t necessary to compile lists of strange, unheard-of chocolates just to satisfy that chocolate-y urge.
Chocolate Rankings from http://www.betterworldshopper.com/r-chocolate.html
A (These companies are social and environmental leaders in their category)
A+ Endangered Species, Equal Exchange, Rapunzel
A Dagoba, Shaman, Green & Black’s
A- Cloud Nine, Tropical Source
B (These tend to be mainstream companies taking social/environmental responsibility seriously)
B+ Newman’s Own
B- Cadbury
C (These companies have either mixed social and environmental records or insufficient data available to rank them)
C+ Hershey’s, Scharffen Berger
C Ferrero Rocher, Russell Stover, Chocolove, Whitman’s, Lindt, Droste, Ghirardelli
D (These companies engage in practices that have significant negative impacts on people and the planet)
D+ Dove
D- Swiss Miss
F (These companies have the worst social and environmental records in the industry)
F Nestle, Perugina, Toblerone
See also:
http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/goodchocolateproducts.html
