WORLD CHOCOLATE DAY (and the true story behind our fave treat...)

Lydia Collins
Jul 7, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Jul 9, 2024

Happy World Chocolate Day!!!! Seeing as it's a global celebration for chocolate, I thought I would share some of the facts behind one of our fave sweet treats.

Chocolate is mostly a blend of cocoa, milk and sugar – with Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana being the main suppliers of cocoa (5 million tonnes of cocoa are grown in these areas every year!), with these areas alone having an estimated 2 million smallholder cocoa farmers. Many of these farmers are living in poverty due to not getting a direct income from the chocolate companies, this being one of the major issues of the industry. Middlemen collect the cocoa beans from smallholder farmers and can only sell them to the larger manufacturers when a certain volume has been reached. The reason this is such a critical issue is that by adding links in the overall chain, the profits the farmers receive is diluted, so there is no guarantee for fair pay. Due to this, the second major issue arises: child labour. If farmers cannot afford schooling and need an extra pair of hands on the farm, children will cut down the cocoa using machetes and be surrounded by harmful chemicals and pesticides.

4 in 10 cocoa-growing households in the Côte d'Ivoire, and 6 in 10 in Ghana, are estimated to use child labour

This is being tackled by NGOs and social enterprises to ensure that farmers are given a fair wage, which would prevent the need for child labour and improve farmer's overall wellbeing. Divine Chocolate, for example, is a global social enterprise with the mission to end exploitation in the cocoa industry and build a space where farmers can thrive. Certifications like Fairtrade are also critical in ensuring that fair wages are given to the farmers.

So what about environmental sustainability? Many companies (like the ones below) are culprits for using palm oil in their chocolate products. Palm oil is a major environmental disruptor due to it requiring copious amounts of deforestation as palm growers try to keep up with the incredibly high demand for the oil, leading to further trees being cut down and habitats being destroyed. According to research, palm oil has been the cause of 100,000 Bornean Orangutans losing their habitats and lives.

Companies using palm oil in their chocolate:

Cadbury's

Ferrero Rocher

Galaxy

Green & Black's

Kinder

KitKat

Malteser's

Mars

Milka

Nestlé

Smarties

Thorntons

Toblerone

To make the chocolate industry more sustainable, bean-to-bar transparency is imperative. Larger chocolate companies and manufacturers need to establish direct relationships with the farmers to remove the middlemen and ensure a fair partnership that is transparent and traceable. This would allow farmers to be more fairly treated and paid, and allow consumers to have more information on the story behind their snack.

As consumers, we can also work to ensure that we buy as ethically as possible (like from the list below!!). I've tried a few of these brands and they're just as delish but without the guilt!!

More ethical/sustainable chocolate brands:

Beyond Good

Divine

Dappah

Tony's Chocolonely

Alter Eco

Endangered Species Chocolate

Loving Earth

Theo Chocolate

(Plus the ones in the picture below!)