the ethics of chocolate

In 2001, I believe as a result of watching a BBC documentary on child slavery in chocolate production, I started paying attention to what chocolate I ate. In fact I just stopped eating chocolate that was not fair trade. It was really easy. Every time I was tempted by a Mars Bar or the like I just thought of the slave labour that was producing it. Suddenly chocolate didn’t seem so appealing.

At the time, Fair trade chocolate wasn’t that easy to find, and I switched to Green and Black. However, I recently discovered that Green and Black have been bought out by Cadbury’s, so I realised I had to do some more research and I embarked upon a virtual journey to work out how Fair Trade their chocolate is.

Cadbury’s site, while extensive, mentions nothing about Fair Trade. Green and Black’s site is little better. You do discover that actually it’s only the Mayan Gold brand which is Fair Trade, so it is NOT safe to assume that any Green and Black chocolate is free from slave labour. Although there are other indications that “organic” chocolate tends to come from non slave labour countries…. But me, I like to be more sure than that. I also have a problem when someone is producing both Fair Trade and NON Fair Trade products.
A quote from Green and Black’s website tells us:

“We operate as a stand alone business with founder Craig Sams remaining as Chairman. Cadbury Schweppes are now able to enhance the brand's success by further adding their indepth knowledge of cocoa production to ensure the continued supply of quality, organic cocoa ongoing to support our even increasing range of products”
Well, you pay your money and you take your choice, but this doesn’t comfort me that the product comes to me as a result of a fairly traded enterprise.

My point is that you need to do a lot more than simply buy Fair Trade from your average supermarket if you actually want to do any good. You need to become more informed about all stages of the process and then you need to make informed choices about WHERE you shop as well as WHAT you buy.

I guess it’s a question of how far you are prepared to go for Fair Trade chocolate. Personally, I find that I don’t want to buy even purportedly Fair Trade goods from a company I do not consider to be ethical in the larger sense. Perhaps I might believe that they may, if not lie to me, not exactly be telling me the whole truth and that while I may like the chocolate, I may not actually be doing anything that useful for the people I actually want to prevent being exploited. I think we have to look beyond the words “organic” and “fair trade” and think about the people who are selling us this stuff. IF Green &Blacks really is Fair Trade chocolate then I’ll buy it from someone who I consider has ethical company policies – but it all shows that you have to be not just aware of the fashion of the end product but of the chain it comes along and try to make sure that every stage is as FAIR to all as it can be.
I certainly won’t be rushing out to M&S to buy fair trade chocolate, whether it has a label on it or not, because I don’t intend to swell their corporate coffers.

At this stage, in the UK it seems to me from my research, that at this present time, the only chocolate you can guarantee is fairly traded comes from Kuapa Kokoo which at the present seems to be the only one I can really find that is up to my standard of ethics. I’m sure they aren’t perfect but it does mean that it’s just Divine chocolate for me for the foreseeable future. They are part of the Day Company. Of course even here there can be problems because Day Company supplies Starbucks and let’s put it this way, you wouldn’t find me in a Starbucks. But at least that relationship seems to be the right way round. And it won’t help the cocoa producers in Africa if we all stop buying ALL chocolate. It might help them if we all demanded Fairly Traded chocolate though.

This is my opinion. This is my belief. This is my lifestyle choice and my code of ethics. You need to get your own and live up to your own. That’s why you need to do the work yourself, to discover for yourself what you think about it. Don’t just take my word for it, find out about it for yourself. But, remember we all have a choice – CHOOSE to buy from people who are ONLY ethical in their principles, not the easy option of the ethical fashion brand from your usual evil empire company.

If you want to delve a little deeper (as I did) into what is actually going on to CHANGE the slave labour situation, since 2001 is quite a long time ago as far as I’m concerned. Okay, the body set up to look into all this in 2001 is called the Cocoa Initiative. What are they doing? A lot of promises, as far as I can see, not a lot of action. Their website is horrifically out of date on all the SUBSTANTIVE issues such as their financial reports (2004) newsletters (a year old) and anything to do with what sort of progress they ACTUALLY might be making.

Now I’d have thought that a body like this, if they are running a serious pilot project and aiming to make a serious change, might use their website to show what progress they are making. I’ve worked on pilot projects. I know the good and the bad of them, and I know it’s possible for websites to be kept up to date…. Perhaps they should have factored in someone to do that work – or perhaps they cynically assumed that as long as people heart the words Pilot Project they assume something is being done. I’m afraid I don’t. A one day consultative meeting in 2004 somehow just doesn’t cut it with me I’m afraid.

We need to PROBE more folks. We need to FOLLOW through on things. Promises of action are one thing, we know all about them, we hear them from our governments all the time. But what is actually happening. I want to know HOW MANY fewer slaves there are, how much less SLAVERY is involved in my chocolate. Sure, just me stopping buying non fair trade chocolate won’t change anything.

However, if EVERYONE did, they’d have to pay a fair price and change their practices now wouldn’t they? It’s easy enough. If knowing that a slave is growing your chocolate isn’t enough to stop you eating it, then I can’t help you. You have to ask yourself whether you can happily carry on eating the end result of slave labour. If you can, you can. If you can’t – do something about it.

I accept that compromise is the order of the day. I accept that it is often very difficult to actually do the right thing in one’s consumer and lifestyle choices. No one said that doing the right thing was the easy thing though. My own personal ethical dilemmas include the following:
I’m not a Christian, but I’d rather buy from Traidcraft or Oxfam than from Tesco’s or Marks and Spencers. I’d rather buy from someone committed to ONLY fair trade goods.
I live in the real world too, of course. I HAVE to buy a product from Nestle’s as part of my daily regime for my chronic condition. I have medication from Proctor and Gamble. What does this mean? It means, that I, like all of us, are on one level hypocrites. What I will not be is a willing hyprocrite. Whenever I CAN feasibly avoid doing something I know is wrong, I make that choice. And I undertake my own version of penance for the wrongs I am forced to commit by dint of the fact that I DO live under Western capitalism. But eating non Fair Trade chocolate? That’s not a life and death issue for me. I really can take it or leave it. I have to make the right choice there. I hope you can make the right choice too. Not the right choice for YOU but the right choice FOR EVERYONE on the planet. Wherever possible. Try. Then try a bit harder. Then do SOMETHING positive to change things. Please.

Find out more about the “ethics” of eating chocolate:

Facts and figures will be yours to find if you google chocolate and slavery.

Links I’ve found while doing research include

Chocolate producers sites:
www.cadbury.co.uk
http://www.greenandblacks.com/
http://www.divinechocolate.com/
http://www.dubble.co.uk/
http://www.kuapakokoogh.com/ "the best of the best" as their tagline states.
i don't think Mars and Nestles will cry at being denied their websites up here... I'm sure you can find them easily enough.

Fair Trade issues

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ps130505.htm links to update (from 2005) on Green and Black.

http://www.transfairusa.org/content/about/n_070201.php is a link to an article about chocolate

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/retailers.html

http://www.cocoainitiative.org is a link to the organisation set up to look into the issue. This is a deeply unsatisfying site!

Slavery issues
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/book_review_bit.php is a link to a book review called Bitter Chocolate

http://www.chocolatework.com/chocolate-slavery.htm

http://www.foodrevolution.org/slavery_chocolate.htm

http://www.truevisiontv.com/slavery.html is the link to the people who made the documentary I saw in 2001.

Virtual ethics

Hi,

Having just signed on to start writing for The Compost Heap blog, I find myself with a blog site, and as a writer, how can I resist yet another virtual opportunity. Sometimes I think I should never have been taught to type - it's like being a concert pianist to me and I can do it for hours on end (with feeling!) I am, by trade, a professional writer BUT I am also a non-capitalist. Note not an ANTI-capitalist, but a non-capitalist. I'm trying to work out ways in which one can still live in a western capitalist market economy and NOT get sucked in. It's my greatest ethical dilemma and doubtless will form the backbone of many posts here.

Previously I've been kind of dubious about blogs - too many ignorant people venting too many ill-formed opinions, BUT my attitudes have been slightly changed over the last few months.

Since November I've been working on a diary (blog) called 40 years on. This is part of my website www.projectjam.co.uk which is a tribute site to Che Guevara, what with this being the 40th anniversary of his murder in Bolivia. Anyway, I set myself the task (among other things) of keeping a daily online journal to parallel the Bolivian Diary written by Che himself. My intention was to gain more information about world events. You can access that blog at the following link http://diary.projectjam.co.uk The site is keeping me pretty busy at the moment, but it has also opened my eyes to a lot of things which I feel NEED talking about.

So -what will I do with this blog? Hopefully I'll post up articles/comments on ethical issues of our day. We'll see. Forgive me for thinking this, but it seems like this is probably a better option than joining Second Life... I don't need to be an avatar thanks, I'm quite happy being me.

Check out my diary and website - Chapter 4 of my online novel is due to be posted on 2nd March!