Imagine that you are at your local retail store and you want to buy yourself a chocolate bar. There are so many brand names to choose from and it’s hard for you to decide but which of these are actually safe to eat and honestly produced? There is a small chance that one of these choices actually is or even worse, not even in the store. People don’t usually background check the chocolate bars they eat because they are too busy enjoying this sweet delicacy but what they don’t know is there is a another story behind the makings of that chocolate bar. Cocoa is a globally consumed commodity and is the main ingredient of chocolate bars; which comes from cocoa beans that are commonly grown in Africa. Farmers do their best to produce as many cocoa as they can to meet demands, but often result in child slavery and labor due to unfair exchange. This results in harmful activities for both the children and the environment just to meet the demands of cocoa production. But there are organizations and companies that are trying to reverse these negative actions to help promote safe, healthy, and slave free cocoa products; in which studies have shown that chocolate can be good for a person’s wellbeing.
Cocoa trees are commonly grown in parts of the world that is close to the equator and are primarily produced in Ghana and Ivory Coast in Africa where cocoa is a cash crop especially in these countries (World Cocoa Foundation, 2012). Farmers rely a lot on their cocoa farms so that they can make a living, but recently there have been unfair exchange for their crops leading into a drastic decrease of profit. These small cocoa farms owned by about 5-6 million farmers in Africa deliver more than 70% of the world cocoa production worldwide (World Cocoa F...
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Kuapa Kokoo. Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative. http://www.kuapakokoo.com/index.cfm. (accessed March 20, 2014).
Oxfam. Fairtrade chocolate: a sweet solution to poverty. Oxfam. http://www.oxfam.org.nz/what-we-do/issues/fair-trade/about-fairtrade/fairtrade-chocolate (accessed on March 20, 2014)
Robbins, John. Is There Slavery In Your Chocolate? Earth Save Healthy People Healthy Planet. http://www.earthsave.org/lifestyle/chocolate.htm (accessed March 15, 2014).
WebMD. Cocoa Side Effects and Safety. Find a Vitamin or Supplement: Cocoa. WebMD. http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-812-COCOA.aspx?activeIngredientId=812&activeIngredientName=COCOA (accessed March 10, 2014)
World Cocoa Foundation. 2012. Cocoa Market Update. World Cocoa Foundation. http://worldcocoafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Cocoa-Market-Update-as-of-3.20.2012.pdf.
During Valentine’s week alone, millions of pounds of chocolate candies alone are sold (“Who consumes the most chocolate,” 2012, para 8). This naturally creates a demand for product, which in turns causes a need for ingredients. The main component in chocolate, of course, is cocoa. Since Côte d’Ivoire provides 40 percent of the world’s supply of this crucial ingredient (Losch, 2002, p. 206), it merits investigation i...
The videos provided for this subject builds a great understanding on what happens behind the scenes and how the production cycle of chocolates turns deadly for few. The chocolate industry is being accused having legit involvement in human trafficking. The dark side of chocolate is all about big industries getting their coco from South America and Africa industries. However, it is an indirect involvement of Hersheys and all other gigantic brands in trafficking (Child Slavery and the Chocolate Factory, 2007).
Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. The True History of Chocolate. 2nd ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2007. Print.
A lot of movies today are not only created for the cause of enjoyment, however frequently bring a solid lesson the director wishes to carry. In the movie Chocolat (directed by Lasse Hallstorm), Vianne defy the idea that the way of life, repute and their related ethical values do no longer make a person morally right. From the beginning of the film chocolate becomes chocolate transforms into an image of enticement and something prohibited. Vienne enters town during the Lent and within the beginning people are afraid to flavor her chocolate because it is prohibited with the aid of their faith. Comte de Reynaud, a religious mayor of the metropolis, begins a campaign against Vienne and her shop. He states that Vienne’s affect is dangerous and that
WebMD. "How To Reduce the Most Common Side Effects of Adult ADHD Medications." WebMD. WebMD, 2005-2016. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.
Chocolate or cacao was first discovered by the Europeans as a New World plant, as the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. In Latin, Theobroma literally means: “food of the Gods” (Bugbee, Cacao and Chocolate: A Short History of Their Production and Use). Originally found and cultivated in Mexico, Central America and Northern South America, its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning “bitter water” (Grivetti; Howard-Yana, Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage). It was also a beverage in Mayan tradition that served a function as a ceremonial item. The cacao plant is g...
Chocolate companies changed from minimal production to massive manufacturing. Thus, targeting different market segments that weren’t possible to reach due to the high cost of the good. The market was able to shift because of the industrialization process that includes several innovations, such as van Houten’s process, this allowed a broad production and distribution of chocolate that spread around the globe.
Corporate Accountability International. "Food/Challenge Corporate Abuse of Our Food." Corporate Accountability International. Stopcorporateabuse.org, 21 June 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
In 2013, about 7.4 million tons of chocolate is expected to be consumed globally, totaling to nearly $110 billion (Pardomuan, Nicholson). I can honestly say that I will be one of the many people who contribute immensely to those massive quantities. Chocolate has always been one of my guilty pleasures, leading me to consider myself a “chocoholic.” After 20 years of eating chocolate, I learned there is more to chocolate than meets the eye. Many chemicals compose each delicious piece creating multiple psychological effects on the mind. With the knowledge of the chemical and psychological influences that chocolate has on the human mind and body and my own curiosity as to why I love it so much, this led me to ask: Why is chocolate considered such a pleasurable and craveable food?
From 2008 to 2012, the exports value (in current prices) of chocolate and other food preparations containing cocoa increased on average by 5.6% to reach its peak of 24.1 bln US$. During the same period, imports showed a similar development with an average increase of 5.5% to amount t...
Central Idea: Explain how cocoa beans are processed to produce the chocolate we all know and love
Cocoa production is predicted of getting shortage of supply in 2020 (Nelson, 2017). The famous chocolate drink that Malaysian drink daily, Milo contains cocoa. Other than Milo, Koko Krunch, Nestle Crunch Wafer, KitKat are also mainly made from cocoa. Nestle as a company which largely depends on cocoa bean for its products, will become one of the victim of this cocoa supply risk. The biggest cocoa producer in the world, Ivory Coast, is facing the problem of diseases infected in cocoa plant, frequent rain, and buyers forcing producers to sell cocoa at very low price (The Guardian, 2014). In Malaysia and Indonesia, cocoa plantations are threatened by a tiny moth named as cocoa pod borer which eat the seed (Nelson, 2017).. These pests has cost cocoa
The Theobroma cacao tree is where it all started. Olmecs, Aztecs, and Mayans were the original consumers of cocoa: they would form it into a drink and ingest it for medicinal reasons (Allen Par. 7). The Spanish then brought it back to Europe and continued to treat a variety of ailments with it (Allen Par. 7). In the last 40 years people have started to question the health benefits of chocolate, but new research is starting to prove that the Olmecs, Aztecs, Mayans and Spaniards were not too far off. Now, the pods from the tree containing cocoa beans are collected, and the cocoa beans are taken out of the pod (Healing Foods Pyramid Par. 15). The beans are then fermented, dried, roasted, then ground to make cocoa liquor (Healing Foods Pyramid Par. 15). The cocoa liquor is then combined with sugar, vanilla, and cocoa butter to make what is now known as chocolate (Healing Foods Pyramid Par. 15). Controversy over the health benefits and detriments of chocolate is slowly subsiding, but there are many things that a lot of people still do not know about how chocolate can affect ones health. Chocolate is misunderstood.
Introduction The 58 million pounds of chocolate eaten on chocolate the drenched holiday of Valentines Day is likely made from cocoa beans from West Africa. The Ivory Coast, also known as Cote D'ivoire in Africa is the source of about 35 percent of the world’s cocoa production. These cocoa beans were likely harvested by unpaid child workers that are being held captive on plantations as slaves. Chocolate companies use these cocoa plantations as their cocoa source for their chocolate products. And since the companies want to maximize their profit, they push plantation owners to lower prices, causing plantations to cut price any way possible (Philpott).
This means that each party can make choices. However in chocolate manufacturing one of the parties is often a large multi million dollar corporation and the other is a small farming company. Concern about the impact of this on small primary producers in developing countries lead to the Fairtrade agreement which Cadburys is a part of. By signing up to the Fairtrade agreement Cadburys agree to buy cocoa at a certain value. Last year Cadburys sold over 7 million chocolate products made with Fair Trade cocoa and this supported 65,000 jobs in