In celebration of July 7th, World Chocolate Day, Jorden and Kimberly consider all things chocolate. What should be a sustainable contribution to the planet’s welfare instead exploits the environment and producers. To combat labor issues and promote sustainability, the Harkin-Engel Protocol aimed to address this complex and often troubling system of cacao and chocolate production. Despite the challenges, there's hope for positive change through better sourcing practices and conscious consumption.
Key Topics Jorden and Kimberly discuss include:
What information should appear on a candy bar wrapper, but doesn’t
How two US Congressmen pushed to end child slave labor in the cacao industry
Why farmers earn only a fraction of the profits from chocolate
How the same volatile market for farmers earns corporations billions a year
How a bafflingly huge percentage of wasted cacao pods can be upcycled
Just how many other food crops can be grown with cacao trees
Who grows the most cacao and who’s closing in quickly
Why cacao production should be more sustainable than it is
Recommended Resources
Chocolate manufacturers’ Score Card, ranking corporations’ sustainability and a summary article
The futures market on chocolate
Country producer rankings
The International
Cocoa Organization’s
farming review and development projects
The World Cocoa Foundation
Cocoa sustainability report, 2022
Cocoa growing and production alternatives, along
with full sun cultivation developments
Upcycling cacao pods to reduce waste and increase farmer
earnings
Chocolate consumption and trends
The Future of Cacao Farming
Kimberly’s
Substack newsletter
post
