Big Chocolate
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"Big Chocolate" is a pejorative business term assigned to multi-national chocolate food producers, much akin to the terms assigned to "Big Oil" and "Big Tobacco".
According to fair trade proponents including Ghanaian cooperative Kuapa Kokoo, "Big Chocolate" companies are Cadbury Schweppes, Mars, Nestlé, and The Hershey Company. Together these companies process about 12% of the world's 3 million tons of cocoa each year.
At the core of the chocolate debate across Europe, parts of Asia and the United States is the definition of chocolate itself, and whether percentages of cocoa in production should render some candies unable to carry the chocolate food definition.
At issue also is the ability to replace cocoa butter or dairy components of chocolate with cheaper vegetable fats or PGPR, thereby reducing the quantity of actual cocoa in the finished product while creating an arguably more unhealthy confection. Currently the United States, the European Union and Russia do not allow vegetable fats as ingredients of products labeled as chocolate.
"Big Chocolate" also refers to the political and social effects of a unifying industry. Consolidated buying enables large cocoa users to wield significant impact in economies, many of them poor African nations, that rely on cocoa production as a critical element of foreign trade.
[edit] References
- ^ Swift, Richard. "A cocoa farmer in Cadbury's court", New Internationalist. Retrieved on 2008-01-09.
- ^ Estis, Wynston. "Fair Trade and Chocolate", The Willy Street Co-op. Retrieved on 2008-01-09.
- ^ Workman, Daniel. "Top Cocoa Bean Processors: Multinational Companies Process More Coco Beans For Dark Chocolates", suite101.com, 2007-07-12. Retrieved on 2008-01-09.
- ^ Strott, Elizabeth. "World chocolate shortage ahead?", MSN Money, 2007-03-21. Retrieved on 2008-01-09.
- ^ "Chocolate wars: Big Chocolate wants to make bars with even less cocoa in them – but not everyone thinks this is a good idea.", New Internationalist. Retrieved on 2008-01-10.
- ^ Morone, James A. (2005), "Morality, Politics, and Health Policy", Policy Challenges in Modern Health Care: 13-25, <http://www.rwjf.org/research/researchdetail.jsp?id=1940&ia=135>.
- The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars ISBN 0767904575
[edit] Further reading
- Chocolate — the facts. New Internationalist . Retrieved on November 7, 2005. which cites Fair Trade Yearbook, 1994 and Cocoa Newsletter, No 3 for its information on Big Chocolate
- Shelby Biggs, Brooke. "Slavery Free Chocolate? — With Valentine's Day coming up, the chocolate industry has agreed to fight child slavery on African cocoa farms. Does it mean business, or is Big Chocolate just sweetening its image?", AlterNet, 2002-02-07.
- The Chocolate Industry: Who benefits? — Fair Trade versus Mass production. Burnholme Community College 2004-03-11. Retrieved on November 7, 2005.
- Alanna MacDougall. The Story of Chocolate and Other Reasons to Consume Responsibly. Human Rights Databank Spring 2003, Vol 9, No. 3 Reports from the Field. Retrieved on November 7, 2005. — MacDougall asks "is Big Chocolate to blame for the conditions of global chocolate production?"
