Big Chocolate

"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,ref|NI1ref|Estis "Big Chocolate" companies are Cadbury Schweppes, Mars, Nestlé, and The Hershey Company. Together these companies process about 12%Fact|date=August 2008 of the world's 3 million tonsref|shortage 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.ref|NI2 Currently the United States, some parts of the European Union and Russia do not allow vegetable fats as ingredients of products labeled as chocolate. The UK, Ireland and Denmark allow vegetable fat as an ingredient. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jan/17/foodanddrink Guardian]

"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.

References

# cite news | url=http://www.newint.org/issue304/farmer.htm|title=A cocoa farmer in Cadbury's court | last=Swift | first=Richard | work=New Internationalist | year=1998 | month=August | accessdate=2008-01-09
# cite news | url=http://www.willystreet.coop/Newsletter/Newsletter_Archive/0402/fairtrade.html | title=Fair Trade and Chocolate | first=Wynston | last=Estis | publisher=The Willy Street Co-op | year=2004 | month=February | accessdate=2008-01-09
# cite news | title=World chocolate shortage ahead? | last=Strott | first=Elizabeth | url=http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/WorldChocolateShortageAhead.aspx?GT1=9215 | work=MSN Money | date=2007-03-21 | accessdate=2008-01-09
# cite news|url=http://www.newint.org/issue304/farmer.htm | title=Chocolate wars: Big Chocolate wants to make bars with even less cocoa in them – but not everyone thinks this is a good idea. | work=New Internationalist | year=1998 | month=August | accessdate=2008-01-10
# Harvard reference | first=James A.| last=Morone | authorlink=James A. Morone | title=Morality, Politics, and Health Policy | journal=Policy Challenges in Modern Health Care | year=2005 | month=May | pages=13-25 | url=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

Further reading

* which cites "Fair Trade Yearbook", 1994 and "Cocoa Newsletter", No 3 for its information on Big Chocolate
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* — MacDougall asks "is Big Chocolate to blame for the conditions of global chocolate production?"

External links

* [http://www.reportbuyer.com/food_drink/confectionary/chocolate/chocolate_challenges.html Chocolate Challenges - Emerging Markets and Fair Trade Opportunities for Manufacturers]

See also

* Fairtrade labelling
* Labor exploitation in the chocolate industry

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