Chocolate is everywhere, but this widespread availability sharply contrasts with the extreme poverty of cocoa farmers which undermines the future of the whole sector. The sector agrees on that bleak outlook.
But solutions and strategies diverge. At least the ISO/CEN process has brought all stakeholders around the table.
Klingele has been in the chocolate business for more than 20 years and is specialised in sugar-free organic and fair trade chocolate. In addition to its own brands – Balance and Green Dream – the company produces chocolate for other brands. Chances are your supermarket also has products made by Klingele on its shelves.
Over the last forty years, fair trade has proved to be a strong development model built on a cup of coffee from Latin America and a chocolate bar from Africa. It is a way for consumers to fight existing inequalities between the North and the South. But what about our own farmers who are also victims of the existing agricultural model? Isn’t a Greek farmer entitled to a fair price for his produce? These issues have occupied European fair trade movements for a while. Over the last few years more and more concrete initiatives in the area have emerged.
Who would have thought that the pralines of a small mouscronnoise chocolate factory on the verge of bankruptcy, bought out almost ten years ago, would become an essential product in organic grocery shops around the world and find its place among the greatest Belgian chocolate makers, while respecting the principles of fair trade?
This study carried out by Facts Figures Future in the name of the Trade for Development Centre aims to give an overview of the current and future availability of sustainable cocoa products in the assortments of major Belgian supermarkets.
Surveys conducted between 2009 and 2011 show that more than 250 000 children are used and exploited in cocoa plantations in West Africa (mainly in Ivory Coast). In 2001, some of the big names of the global chocolate industry signed the Harkin-Engel protocol and committed to addressing the worst forms of child labour. Ten years later, none of the goals set by this protocol were fully achieved.
The Kivu region is one of the most dangerous places in the world. In this region the Ugandan organisation Gourmet Gardens set up a vanilla and cocoa production chain that is fair trade (Fair for Life) and organic certified in 2005.
Cocoa is a mythical food with surprising origins that has made its way around the globe. Starting in Central America, it spread in the holds of merchant ships during the era when the world was opening up to explorers. Limited to the zone between the tropics, from which it cannot escape, the cocoa tree is fragile and delicate and its trunk and branches hold a bizarre, inedible fruit. A fruit, though, that is highly prized.
Chocolate is everywhere, but this widespread availability sharply contrasts with the extreme poverty of cocoa farmers which undermines the future of the whole sector. The sector agrees on that bleak outlook.
But solutions and strategies diverge. At least the ISO/CEN process has brought all stakeholders around the table.
Klingele has been in the chocolate business for more than 20 years and is specialised in sugar-free organic and fair trade chocolate. In addition to its own brands – Balance and Green Dream – the company produces chocolate for other brands. Chances are your supermarket also has products made by Klingele on its shelves.
Over the last forty years, fair trade has proved to be a strong development model built on a cup of coffee from Latin America and a chocolate bar from Africa. It is a way for consumers to fight existing inequalities between the North and the South. But what about our own farmers who are also victims of the existing agricultural model? Isn’t a Greek farmer entitled to a fair price for his produce? These issues have occupied European fair trade movements for a while. Over the last few years more and more concrete initiatives in the area have emerged.
Who would have thought that the pralines of a small mouscronnoise chocolate factory on the verge of bankruptcy, bought out almost ten years ago, would become an essential product in organic grocery shops around the world and find its place among the greatest Belgian chocolate makers, while respecting the principles of fair trade?
This study carried out by Facts Figures Future in the name of the Trade for Development Centre aims to give an overview of the current and future availability of sustainable cocoa products in the assortments of major Belgian supermarkets.
Surveys conducted between 2009 and 2011 show that more than 250 000 children are used and exploited in cocoa plantations in West Africa (mainly in Ivory Coast). In 2001, some of the big names of the global chocolate industry signed the Harkin-Engel protocol and committed to addressing the worst forms of child labour. Ten years later, none of the goals set by this protocol were fully achieved.
The Kivu region is one of the most dangerous places in the world. In this region the Ugandan organisation Gourmet Gardens set up a vanilla and cocoa production chain that is fair trade (Fair for Life) and organic certified in 2005.
Cocoa is a mythical food with surprising origins that has made its way around the globe. Starting in Central America, it spread in the holds of merchant ships during the era when the world was opening up to explorers. Limited to the zone between the tropics, from which it cannot escape, the cocoa tree is fragile and delicate and its trunk and branches hold a bizarre, inedible fruit. A fruit, though, that is highly prized.
