Biography of a Hershey Chocolate Bar
The ingredients include: Milk chocolate (sugar, milk, chocolate, cocoa butter, lactose, milk fat, soy lecithin, PGPR, emulsifier, vanillin, and artificial flavor)
Working and living conditions of people who produce cocoa: Farmers who produce cocoa invest a lot of time and patience into their business. They earn very low incomes and have to put the money they receive into their land or their workers. They don’t earn enough to pay their workers so then end up cutting their salaries and also tend to use child labour. Some even end up treating their workers so bad. Some farmers tends to be below the poverty line meaning they only make about $1.25/day. Also farmers income is affected by the prices of the cocoa being sold; therefore, if nothing is being sold they cant receive any profit.
The way it is produced/child labour involved: It comes from cocoa bean which are on a cocoa fruit tree. The production of cocoa begins in the tropical regions where the hot and humid climate is well suited for growing cocoa trees. 70% of the world’s cocoa beans come from West African countries. 90% of cocoa is grown on small family farms; 5% comes from large plantations. Growing cocoa is hard manual work, as caring for and harvesting the beans requires close and continuous attention and also a lot of patience. The cocoa tree flowers and bears fruit throughout the entire year. It produces large cocoa pods, which need to be cut from the trees by machetes or sticks. Each cocoa pod contains around 20 to 30 seeds sitting in a sweet white pulp – these are the actual cocoa beans. It takes a whole year’s crop from one tree to make half a kilo of cocoa. Pods do not ripen at the same time, the trees need to be monitored continuously. Cocoa is a very delicate crop, easily affected by changes in weather and to diseases and pests. After the harvest, the ripe pods need to be cut open with machetes and the beans are taken out. The cocoa beans then need to be fermented, dried, cleaned and packed. When the beans are packed into cocoa sacks, the farmers are ready to sell. Because of all the hard work that is put through with this process, child labour does occur. Cocoa is then turned into many things such as butter, liquor, etc.
Cocoa being brought to the market: Intermediaries buy the sacks of unprocessed beans and sell them to exporters. When the beans reach the grinding companies in the global North, the cocoa still needs to be processed. The beans are crushed and the shells removed, roasted, and finally ground.
Prices set: They are mainly set by supply and demand levels; if the supply of cocoa is low then the price of the chocolate become higher. They also tend to create their prices way more then what they buy the cocoa more so they get the better end of the stick.
International company that dominates chocolate trade/ regulated by: Mars Wrigley Confectionery, division of Mars Inc (USA), Ferrero Group (Luxembourg / Italy), and Mondelēz International (USA) are three of the top companies that run chocolate. TransFair USA is a regulator for chocolate companies.
How chocolate is marketed: Each company has their targeted audience. Most companies use commercials to intrigue children into buying their product. They also use certain colors and shapes to target their audience.
Chocolate bought from: Most of these products are sold at markets or corner stores. Mine was bought from my local Rite Aid.
Profit made from store owners: Chocolate franchises make about 40-48%, chocolate enterprises make about 58-72%, and wholesalers/retailers make about 23-47%.
Hidden cost/health care cost: Taxes are a big hidden cost when buying these products. Eating too much chocolate can make you sick and you may end up in the doctors for it.
