I eat chocolate, especially dark chocolate. The packaging design provides an air of quality / luxury and there’s a list of ingredients and a breakdown of nutritional value in terms of protein, carbohydrates and sugars etc. You could argue that the data provided is hard to process whilst shopping, but at least its there and if you keep the wrapper you can then compare chocolate bars from rival brands.
But there is an alarming piece of information missing, which could spoil eating chocolate for many consumers. It is the fact that most cocoa farms use child labour.
So how about putting that information on your favourite chocolate bar?
BBC presenter / comedian Alex Riley, did just that, he went out onto the streets and asked consumers would they like to taste his new chocolate bar which stated ‘made using child labour’ printed on the packaging. Unsurprisingly many consumers felt uneasy, reluctant to indulge. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
It should be on there, as it is accurate and factually correct.
It would then create pressure via greater consumer awareness and potentially lower sales for the industry to do something abut it. Yes, this is how the industry currently operates, and it is a very difficult problem to resolve as most of the cocoa used is untraceable.
This labelling should be the default position until brands can prove otherwise. Fair-trade chocolate does provide some traceability and hence it is usually more expensive.
I would argue consumer goods need to have such information. There needs to be more distinction between brands that are actually trying to do something about it, rather than ignoring it and just spending all of their money on marketing. With the omission of such consumer information there is no commercial incentive to make any changes.
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