Who eats Hershey's and or Nestle's Chocolate?

[GunnyFreedom]

Who here eats Nestle and Hershey chocolate?

Are you aware of where they get their cocoa beans?

Answer the poll and discuss. The point (which causes this to fall under "General Politics") will be introduced once we have some good action on the poll.

1) Yes, I eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, and yes, I know how they get their cocoa beans
2) Yes, I eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, but no, I don't know how they get their cocoa beans
3) No, I don't eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, because I just don't eat chocolate
4) No, I don't eat Hershey's and or Nestle's, because I know how they get their cocoa beans

[GunnyFreedom]

bumping for poll action. making store run for coffee sugar. all will be explained in 2-3 hours.

[jclay2]

Bump for some more polling data, I am interested in what GunnyFreedom is up to.

[torchbearer]

I have eaten both, but don't really eat them much.
I had a hershey's dark chocolate bar several months ago. i enjoyed it.

[roho76]

Is it the byproduct of soilent green?

[torchbearer]

Is it the byproduct of soilent green?

not sure how I would feel about that.

[jclay2]

Is it the byproduct of soilent green?

"Soilent Green is People"

[Danke]

"Soilent Green is People"

And pretty bland without Tabasco Sauce.

[LittleLightShining]

I said yes (the 2nd option) but I'm not crazy about either. I prefer very dark chocolate and that stuff is pretty junky, but I generally don't turn it down. I have a feeling I'm gonna wanna puke after Gunny enlightens us. We had smores at camp this weekend

[GunnyFreedom]

We are already well above the median of "people aware of the problem" than is normal for US population. Don't fret. I'll explain soon.

[dannno]

I stay away from hershey's and nestle because they are shady global corporations. I pretty much stay away from all the shady global corporations I can, but i do buy peanut m&ms (mars) at work occasionally cause it's the only thing here I can eat when I don't have food, besides the chocolate covered raisins. If I had more options here, like regular peanuts that aren't completely drenched in salt, then I'd go for those instead.

I voted no, even though I don't specifically know how they get their cocoa beans I do eat chocolate so I couldn't pick the third option, and on top of that I know that they have shady practices because global corporations are supported by the banks that control these third world nations that are exploited.

[GunnyFreedom]

I said yes (the 2nd option) but I'm not crazy about either. I prefer very dark chocolate and that stuff is pretty junky, but I generally don't turn it down. I have a feeling I'm gonna wanna puke after Gunny enlightens us. We had smores at camp this weekend

Noooo, it's not like they mix bat-feces into the chocolate, but I kind of wish they did. At least the average person would actually CARE about that enough to buy other brands that are actually responsible.

[Agent CSL]

I stopped eating the more common brands of chocolate, but I didn't cut them out entirely. I still eat a hersheys bar from time to time, but I more or less only buy Green & Blacks now (just wait - I'll find out they were sold to Hersheys in a moment here, just like Dagoba).

Now tell me which fatal ill befalls the land of chocolate!

[Bill M DC]

I voted #2. I'm sure they get their beans through some form of human trafficking and/or exploitation. If you backtrack our imports you'll see that is the case with many.

Being involved with the Peace and (by default) Social Justice movement in DC I get educated regularly about what I'm putting in my mouth. Lot's of Vegetarian and Vegans here and not all are for health reasons. Many don't eat meat to boycott industrial farming and buy their veggies from small farm co-ops.

I have issues with Wal-Mart, McDonalds, etc. As people are educated and outraged perhaps market share will fall and these companies will mend their ways.

[GunnyFreedom]

OK here goes.

There are basically two ways you can buy cocoa beans in Africa. Either you can buy them directly from the farmer, or you can buy them from a market in a kind of "mix trough" where the beans from hundreds of plantations are dumped into the same bucket.

It is a lot easier to purchase from the market, because you don't have to track down the plantations. "Single-Source" cocoa is more expensive because nobody (but the "mix tough" markets) will buy from certain plantations who sell at half the price of single sourcers.

"Mix tough" cocoa is about 15% cheaper in the Ivory Coast. than mix trough cocoa in other nations that regulate production methods, an 20% cheaper than single source cocoa.

The vast majority of mix trough cocoa in the Ivory Coast comes from a black market slave trade.

Slave marketeers kidnap children aged between from 8 years old to 15 years old all over the African continent and sell them to cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast for between $40 and $80 each. These plantations then work those children literally to death, providing them only enough food and water to make their average survival rate 6 months to a year at most. Why spend $150 to feed a child for a year when you can spend half that on a new slave when the old one dies?

Hershey's and Nestle's purchase their cocoa almost exclusively from mix trough markets in the Ivory Coast, because it runs 10% to 20% cheaper than markets in other nations where such practices are banned and the bans are enforced. Cheaper wholly on account of the fact that 75% to 80% of the cocoa found in these markets are produced from the child kidnapping slavery and death practices mentioned above.

All Hershey's and Nestle's would have to do is to purchase their cocoa from South America, or a different nation in Africa, pay maybe 15%-20% more, and the slavery plantations would go extinct from the lack of a market. Even in the Ivory Coast there are single-source plantations that do not use such practices that would cost 10% to 15% more than current.

When you confront Hershey's and Nestle's about this they both say the same thing word for word: "We have no control over the practices of our vendors."

Nevermind that they can just go 100 miles down the coast and purchase cocoa beans that were NOT produced this way...

I have been on this issue for almost 10 years now. I suppose it was one of the things I put on "hold" when campaigning for Ron Paul, but y'all deserve to know.

if you eat Hershey's or Nestle's, then some 80% of the cocoa that goes to make them is produced by kidnapped child slave labor where the children are literally and intentionally worked to death so that the plantation owners don't have to pay for food. And all to save what amounts to 20% of the price of cocoa...or 5% yes 5% of the total cost of the finished product.

5 cents on the dollar they save YOU, the consumer, in exchange for killing tens of thousands of kidnapped children. every year.

My biggest problem is that maybe half the people I have explained this to, who actually do the research to verify what I said is true, would still rather buy the Hershey's and the Nestle's when all you have to do it get an expensive chocolate like Ghiardellis and you don't contribute to this practice.

Yes, I have been on a crusade about "Blood Chocolate" for almost a decade now. Although this may be the first time I have raised cain about it since giving myself over to the Ron Paul effort.

[LittleLightShining]

So it's just Nestle's and Hershey? And I'm assuming that's all candy bars made by those companies?

What a horrible, horrible thing. Thanks for telling me. I'll never spend my money on it again. Sometimes I do buy the Hershey's Reserve bars but even if those are made with single source beans I won't give those companies my business.

[Theocrat]

OK here goes.

There are basically two ways you can buy cocoa beans in Africa. Either you can buy them directly from the farmer, or you can buy them from a market in a kind of "mix trough" where the beans from hundreds of plantations are dumped into the same bucket.

It is a lot easier to purchase from the market, because you don't have to track down the plantations. "Single-Source" cocoa is more expensive because nobody (but the "mix tough" markets) will buy from certain plantations who sell at half the price of single sourcers.

"Mix tough" cocoa is about 15% cheaper in the Ivory Coast. than mix trough cocoa in other nations that regulate production methods, an 20% cheaper than single source cocoa.

The vast majority of mix trough cocoa in the Ivory Coast comes from a black market slave trade.

Slave marketeers kidnap children aged between from 8 years old to 15 years old all over the African continent and sell them to cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast for between $40 and $80 each. These plantations then work those children literally to death, providing them only enough food and water to make their average survival rate 6 months to a year at most. Why spend $150 to feed a child for a year when you can spend half that on a new slave when the old one dies?

Hershey's and Nestle's purchase their cocoa almost exclusively from mix trough markets in the Ivory Coast, because it runs 10% to 20% cheaper than markets in other nations where such practices are banned and the bans are enforced. Cheaper wholly on account of the fact that 75% to 80% of the cocoa found in these markets are produced from the child kidnapping slavery and death practices mentioned above.

All Hershey's and Nestle's would have to do is to purchase their cocoa from South America, or a different nation in Africa, pay maybe 15%-20% more, and the slavery plantations would go extinct from the lack of a market. Even in the Ivory Coast there are single-source plantations that do not use such practices that would cost 10% to 15% more than current.

When you confront Hershey's and Nestle's about this they both say the same thing word for word: "We have no control over the practices of our vendors."

Nevermind that they can just go 100 miles down the coast and purchase cocoa beans that were NOT produced this way...

I have been on this issue for almost 10 years now. I suppose it was one of the things I put on "hold" when campaigning for Ron Paul, but y'all deserve to know.

if you eat Hershey's or Nestle's, then some 80% of the cocoa that goes to make them is produced by kidnapped child slave labor where the children are literally and intentionally worked to death so that the plantation owners don't have to pay for food. And all to save what amounts to 20% of the price of cocoa...or 5% yes 5% of the total cost of the finished product.

5 cents on the dollar they save YOU, the consumer, in exchange for killing tens of thousands of kidnapped children. every year.

My biggest problem is that maybe half the people I have explained this to, who actually do the research to verify what I said is true, would still rather buy the Hershey's and the Nestle's when all you have to do it get an expensive chocolate like Ghiardellis and you don't contribute to this practice.

Yes, I have been on a crusade about "Blood Chocolate" for almost a decade now. Although this may be the first time I have raised cain about it since giving myself over to the Ron Paul effort.

Citations, please.

[GunnyFreedom]

So it's just Nestle's and Hershey? And I'm assuming that's all candy bars made by those companies?

What a horrible, horrible thing. Thanks for telling me. I'll never spend my money on it again. Sometimes I do buy the Hershey's Reserve bars but even if those are made with single source beans I won't give those companies my business.

It's not JUST Hershey's and Nestle's but they are by FAR the worst offenders. I think Mars occasionally makes bulk purchases of Ivory Coast mix trough beans in an attempt to stay competitive.

But I don't buy from ANY of the big companies. I stopped buying Dove then Mars bought them.

Now I go to Fresh Market or such places to buy mom & pop produced chocolate. Someone mentioned Green & Blacks. I may be mistaken, but I am pretty sure they are one of the safe ones.

No, I haven't given up chocolate, but before I buy a brand I do intense research into where they source their beans FIRST. There is still plenty of safe chocolate out there. Even classier grocery stores like Lowes Foods carries it.

I have been known to pick up a chocolate bar in the grocery store and call the info number on the back to reach the production company and inquire directly as to their source for cocoa beans before purchasing.

[Zippyjuan]

I don't like Nestle's products, too much sugar in them.
Hershey's and others often buy through brokers who get beans from all over the world. A delivery could include beans from several different countries even on different continents.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/starbucks/val.cfm

From the ports, the beans are shipped to cocoa processors. America's biggest are ADM Cocoa in Milwaukee, a subsidiary of Decatur, Ill.-based Archer Daniels Midland; Barry Callebaut, which has its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland; Minneapolis-based Cargill; and Nestle USA of Glendale, Calif., a subsidiary of the Swiss food giant.


But by the time the beans reach the processors, those picked by slaves and those harvested by free field hands have been jumbled together in warehouses, ships, trucks and rail cars. By the time they reach consumers in America or Europe, free beans and slave beans are so thoroughly blended that there is no way to know which chocolate products taste of slavery and which do not.

The middlemen who buy Ivory Coast cocoa beans from farmers and sell them to processors seldom visit the country's cocoa farms, and when they do, it's to examine the beans, not the workers. Young boys are a common sight on the farms of West Africa, and it's impossible to know without asking which are a farmer's own children, which are field hands who will be paid $150 to $180 after a year's work and which are slaves.

"We've never seen child slavery. We don't go to the plantations. The slavery here is long gone," said G.H. Haidar, a cocoa buyer in Daloa, in the heart of Ivory Coast's cocoa region. "We're only concerned with our work."

The Chocolate Manufacturers Association, based in Vienna, Va., at first said the industry was not aware of slavery, either. After Knight Ridder began inquiring about the use of slaves on Ivory Coast cocoa farms, however, the CMA in late April acknowledged that a problem might exist and said it strongly condemned "these practices wherever they may occur."

In May, the association decided to expand an Ivory Coast farming program to include education on "the importance of children." And in June, the CMA agreed to fund a survey of child labor practices on Ivory Coast cocoa farms.

Finally, on Friday, the CMA announced some details of the joint study, which will survey 2,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast. "Now we are not debating that this is true," CMA President Larry Graham said Friday when asked about cocoa farm slavery. "We're accepting that this is a fact."

Ivorian officials have found scores of enslaved children from Mali and Burkina Faso and sent them home and they have asked the International Labor Organization, a global workers' rights agency, to help them conduct a child labor survey that's expected to be completed this year.

[GunnyFreedom]

Citations, please.

Google is your friend. It's not like this isn't well publicized. It's just not well discussed.

Here is a good place to start, with tons and tons of source material:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_e...olate_industry

There are some 30-ish sources in the Wiki article alone, and that just brushes the surface.

If those 30 sources are not enough for you let me know and I will Google up a few hundred more.

[Pericles]

Free market at work - and I don't mean this in a critical of free markets way.

Fact is that a majority will buy at the lowest price and not give much consideration as to how that price was achieved.

There are basically two alternatives to a total hands off approach.

(1) provide additional information about the product and its quality in order to differentiate it from similar products in the market place - thise that have a code of ethics then pay the additional price for having a code of ethics

(2) place additional economic cost on produces who violate health and saftey laws, in order to "more level the playing field". Doing this via tariffs on imports make domestically produced goods (presumably subject to our worker laws) more competitive in our market

[Brassmouth]

Citations, please.

I second that.

[GunnyFreedom]

I don't like Nestle's products, too much sugar in them.
Hershey's and others often buy through brokers who get beans from all over the world. A delivery could include beans from several different countries even on different continents.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/starbucks/val.cfm

True enough, but it would not be very difficult to take one-two steps closer to the source and spend a few dollars more for beans KNOWN to be free of slavery. The big companies arguments here do not hold water. If they paid 15% more for slavery free cocoa beans, it would raise the cost of the finished chocolate bar some 5%.

I don't think that's too much to ask from Hershey's.

There are already PLENTY of chocolate companies who do not trade in blood chocolate.

[Sandman33]

Gunny thank you for the insight. I appreciate it and will be boycotting the products myself. I always thought they got the beans from south America, not Africa.

[GunnyFreedom]

Free market at work - and I don't mean this in a critical of free markets way.

Fact is that a majority will buy at the lowest price and not give much consideration as to how that price was achieved.

There are basically two alternatives to a total hands off approach.

(1) provide additional information about the product and its quality in order to differentiate it from similar products in the market place - thise that have a code of ethics then pay the additional price for having a code of ethics

(2) place additional economic cost on produces who violate health and saftey laws, in order to "more level the playing field". Doing this via tariffs on imports make domestically produced goods (presumably subject to our worker laws) more competitive in our market

There is what I have been waiting for. This thread came up because of the "Depleting all the tuna" thread. The ONLY solution I could see to solve the 'tuna crisis' would be for an international agreement to impose tariffs NOT on 'all tuna' but specifically on the harvesting methodologies leading to 40% waste which has led to said resource depletion.

AND this is why this thread is in General Politics. What is the solution to the problem? If half of the people once informed still don't care...(I expect among this group that would more like 15% who would still buy Hershey's even knowing the background...instead of 50% of sheeple) then what is the solution?

Same as the tuna problem I imagine. I HATE government based solutions, but what choice in this case? It's not going to stop on it's own. So all that would have to happen is for an international agreement to tariff non 'slavery-free' certified beans at 40% to 50% which will make the "slavery free" beans cheaper, naturally drawing the market AWAY from the use of slavery.

Only real solution I can see as of now.

[dannno]

Free market at work - and I don't mean this in a critical of free markets way.

Fact is that a majority will buy at the lowest price and not give much consideration as to how that price was achieved.

There are basically two alternatives to a total hands off approach.

(1) provide additional information about the product and its quality in order to differentiate it from similar products in the market place - thise that have a code of ethics then pay the additional price for having a code of ethics

(2) place additional economic cost on produces who violate health and saftey laws, in order to "more level the playing field". Doing this via tariffs on imports make domestically produced goods (presumably subject to our worker laws) more competitive in our market

Slavery is not the "free market"

[dannno]

I second that.

See post #20

[Natalie]

Wow, that's horrible!!

I don't really eat chocolate anyway. I just don't like sweet things. When it comes to junk food, I'm more of a salt/cheese person.

[Zippyjuan]

I know that none would be a desirable number but does anybody know what percent of chocolate is produced via slave labor? From other articles I read today the source is primarly small farmers in very poor countries.

Slave Free Chocolate: http://www.chocolatework.com/slavery...-slavefree.htm
What percent of your car is slave labor from China or other coutry? Your computer? Your cell phone? Is using unpaid prison labor slave labor? That happens even in this country. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/...s_slave_labor/

Or this.
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/stori...-big-bucks-fo/

Top Cocoa Bean Processors in the World: http://internationaltrade.suite101.c...ean_processors

•Archer Daniels Midland (US) ... 15% of global cocoa bean grindings
•Cargill (US) ... 14%
•Barry Callebaut (Switzerland) ... 13%
•Nestle (Switzerland) ... 5%
•Cadbury Schweppes (UK) ... 3%
•Hershey (US) ... 2%
•Ferraro (Italy) ... 2%
•Mars (US) ... 2%


http://internationaltrade.suite101.c...xzz0HrzpIs4p&D

[GunnyFreedom]

I know that none would be a desirable number but does anybody know what percent of chocolate is produced via slave labor? From other articles I read today the source is primarly small farmers in very poor countries.

Slave Free Chocolate: http://www.chocolatework.com/slavery...-slavefree.htm
What percent of your car is slave labor from China or other coutry? Your computer? Your cell phone? Is using unpaid prison labor slave labor? That happens even in this country. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/...s_slave_labor/

Or this.
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/stori...-big-bucks-fo/

From the research I have done, nearly 80% of the open market (non-single-source) chocolate from the Ivory Coast is produced by slave labor, and about 80% of the cocoa purchased by the "Big Three" come from open markets in the Ivory Coast.

0.8 x 0.8 = .64 so approx 64% of the cocoa in your average Hershey bar was picked by the hands of children probably already dead by the time you eat it.

As for other goods, I make a distinct effort to buy goods, technology, and vehicles produced using non-exploitative means, don't you?