With the demand for fair trade items on the rise, more companies are jumping on the fair trade train, especially candy companies. For chocolate lovers concerned about ethically-sourced cocoa, deciphering what fair trade means to each company may soon become tricky.

Ethically-sourced?

According to Global Exchange, hundreds of thousands of children are working cocoa farms in hazardous conditions, applying pesticides and using machetes, keeping them out of school and trapped in a life of poverty. One report found that thousands of children on cocoa farms were without relatives in the area, a sign that trafficking may be at play. The largest producer of cocoa is the Ivory Coast (more than 40% of its export revenues), followed by Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Cameroon.

While it's indisputable that providing better working conditions and fair prices to cocoa-producing communities is a good thing, Charlotte Eyre, editor of Confectionerynews.com and bakeryandsnacks.com, argues that as more and more companies use different marketing schemes to promote fair trade cocoa, they risk "muddying the issue and puzzling chocolate fans." She says a consistent standard and fair way of communicating this standard to consumers is needed. (Sound familiar? This same discussion prompted a federal regulatory system for organic products – the National Organic Program.)

For example, some companies that participate in fair trade programs pay producers the minimum wage in that country, while others, such as Cadbury (the largest chocolate supplier in the UK), started a Cocoa Partnership in Ghana where it purchases cocoa at 10% above the market rate. The mark-up may be above the fair trade floor, says Eyre, but "what happens…if one year the crop value falls because, say, poor weather conditions?"

Compare that to Divine chocolate, which buys its cocoa from a cooperative in Ghana at a guaranteed minimum fair price, protecting farmers from a volatile market.

Other programs include the World Cocoa Foundation (Cargill and Mars are members) and the Good Inside Cocoa Program (Nestle, Mars, and Cargill are members), the latter being certified by Utz Certified. All of these programs promote fair trade principles, but questions remain as to who regulates them. Currently there's only one independent, third-party certifier in the U.S. – TransFair USA (a non-profit organization).

Between 2005 and 2006, worldwide purchasing of fair trade products increased by 42%, according to the Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International. Still, fair trade chocolate purchases account for less than 1% of the market. And two firms – Hershey and Mars – control two-thirds of the $13 billion U.S. chocolate candy industry. Because some of these new programs make labeling fair trade ingredients voluntary, consumers have no way to choose, say, Mars products that belong to the "Good Inside" program. We should demand honest labels from these large companies that claim to source cocoa from an ethical supply chain.

If chocolate is a must this Valentine's Day, extend your purchasing power across the globe by buying certified fair trade chocolate and encouraging better wages and conditions for cocoa farmers. Your chocolate bar might taste that much sweeter.

Via: FoodQualityNews.com

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