raw Chocolate 

Vegan  /  Fair Trade  /  Raw Cacao  /  Organic  /  Made with Love in Israel

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Is the chocolate you eat only certified Fair Trade?

Why is it very important to buy & support only Fair Trade Certified Chocolate?

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Right when we buy something, for example when we buy chocolate, we are supporting the industry & the whole supply chain of that industry.  We are supporting a whole chain of people that were part of making that product til it reaches us on the supermarket shelf.

Every time we buy anything, whether its food or clothes or a car, we are supporting that brand & the industry, we are essentially voting with our money. 

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When we buy Chocolate, and we are eating it, it is sooo yummy, and we are enjoying eating the chocolate bar, but would it taste so amazing to you & be so enjoyable to you if you knew that

your chocolate was made using children as slaves?

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Before the chocolate arrives to the largest Chocolate companies in the world, the Cacao beans pass thru about 7-8 different hands of people before it arrives to the chocolate factory.  Unfortunately the cacao farmer is at the very bottom of this chain, and gets paid the least amount of money for his work, about a $1 a day.  

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Let's talk a minute about where chocolate comes from & how it is grown.

Have you ever seen a cacao pod before?

Chocolate beans or actually a cacao pod is grown in a very specific climate. 

It grows best 20 degrees North & South from the equator.

60% of the world's cacao grows in Africa, specifically Ghana & the Ivory Coast

Actually 40% of the world's cacao production comes from the Ivory Coast alone.

Unfortunately, the world market price for cacao beans, even though they are grown mostly in Africa, the world market price for cacao beans is decided all the way in London.  

Unfortunately the industry is a dirty industry & people there are very poor, for example a cacao farmer makes about $1 a day for all his work. 

Could you imagine being a parent and making 4 nis a day for your work & supporting a family on 4 nis a day?

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If you are a cacao farmer, you are 1 farmer amongst 5 million other cacao farmers, and you sell your cacao beans to 1 of 5 big companies buying them, so you don't have much bargaining power on the price.

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Some of these big companies say, "That's the world price of cacao beans, we can't influence the world's price." 

But if you are a big company buying 25% of the world's cacao beans how can you not influence the price?

 

Unfortunately in places in the world, still today, people are desperate to make money so they use children as workers, child slave labor, to harvest the cacao pods.  Children at 6 years old have been found to be working 80-100 hours a week without pay & being forced to work.  People are so poor that people are forced to desperate measures & the governments in these countries do not do their job of policing this child abuse.  

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Does chocolate still taste yummy knowing that children are being used as slaves to harvest the cacao beans?

Even today, as of right now, the largest manufacturers of chocolate are being sued by former child workers in the Ivory Coast for using child slavery to harvest their cacao beans. 

Even right now these large companies are still using child slavery!

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So how can we help these children to not be used as slave labor to harvest cacao pods?

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Like I said at the beginning, everything we buy, everytime we buy something we are voting with our money.

There are certification programs that make sure that Cacao farmers are paid fairly, at least minimum wage, and that no child labor is used at the cacao farms.

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This is called Fair Trade Chocolate.

A Chocolate bar or also Coffee Beans that are certified Fair Trade means that the farmers are paid at least minimum wage & that no child labor or forced labor is used.  

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The next time you go to buy a bar of chocolate, look on the wrapper if it says on the package that the chocolate is Fair Trade.  If it does not say Fair Trade, then most likely it is not Fair Trade chocolate

& the cacao could be farmed using slave or child labor.  

A company that uses Fair Trade will advertise that they use Fair Trade cacao because the bar will be slightly more expensive than the other brands on the shelf next to it.

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In Israel, there is a limited amount of brands that use fair trade chocolate, and you will most likely find these brands at health food stores or boutique chocolate shops.

The cacao products that we use come from Peru & are Fair Trade. 

Most of the Fair Trade chocolate in the world is coming from Madagascar, Peru & the Philipines.

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So next time you buy chocolate, look for Fair Trade chocolate & know that you can enjoy every bite of the chocolate bar knowing that the farmer was paid fairly & no child or slave labor was involved.