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The trade in Cadbury chocolate

Abstract

Cadbury is a British chocolate company established in 1824, having many factories located in 40 countries, and it's head quarters located in Uxbridge, London. Cadbury is mainly famous for it's creamy milk chocolate. The ingredients and it's locations are listed below to make the chocolate:

• Milk powder (England)
• Cocoa butter(mainly from Ivory coast and Ghana)
• Cocoa mass(same as cocoa butter)
• Sugar(Mainly from China, but also from Brazil)

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are people with an interest or concern in a business. Stakeholders involving in cocoa cultivation, the main raw ingredient & the final product, the Cadbury Chocolate are farmers, middlemen, exporters, international traders, distributors, manufacturer, stockists/retailer & consumers . The stakeholders that are most affected & least profit making are farmers. Some farmers treat workers like slaves on their farms, some are underage which means illegal child-labor. In $100 billion profit-making industry, farmers get a very small percentage of the profit, while the rest goes the retailers, middlemen and manufacturers. An example of it is that farmers receive 6% of a chocolate bar's sale price and retailers get 80% of the sale price.

Negative issues

Below are negative issues effecting the environment due to Cocoa plantations and these issues can affect to the stakeholders in the trading chain of cocoa to Cadbury chocolate:

• Deforestation - Farmers require a lot of land to grow cocoa trees due to growing demand for the main raw material, which can contribute to deforestation. Cacao trees mainly grow under the shade of taller trees. If the trees are grown under the sun light with no shade in cleared jungle areas, sunlight can cause weeds and pests to spread. When farmers then use chemicals to eradicate the weeds causing damage to the cacao pods, resulting in less production, damage to people's health and destruction of underground organisms like worms.

• Child labor - Many cocoa farms employ child labor to harvest crops. Poor relatives "sell" their children to farmers to work and make a fortune. Children say that their pay and salary are good, but behind closed doors, they live in harsh conditions such as poor hygiene, and not enough food and housing conditions. This is a huge ethical as well as a labor issue that isn't adequately addressed & dealt with by the Governments of biggest cocoa producing countries.

Major issue: Deforestation

The main reason why deforestation is a major environmental issue in cocoa production is because farmers make an overall negative impact with deforestation due to massive demand for the cocoa beans. According to today's statistics, an average British consumer consumes 8.4 kg of chocolate each year & growing. To meet the increasing demand, farmers clear land to grow more cocoa trees. Ivory coast and Ghana, two of the world's biggest cocoa producers, are responsible for the loss of their own forests. In Ivory coast, 13,748 hectares (34,000 acres) of forests are chopped down to farm and produce cocoa beans. This amount of chopped down forests is equivalent to 15,000 football fields. Due to cutting down forests, cocoa trees cannot have shade required from taller trees. When the trees are cut down, the sunlight causes weeds and pests to spread. When farmers spray pesticides for pests and chemicals for weeds, the chemicals can affect people's health, kill organisms in the soil and damage it to be unproductive. The long-term result will be the reduction of cocoa production in damaged lands which result in further deforestation, particularly in protected & preserved forests & national parks.

Strategies to combat deforestation.

Many big companies such as Olam based in Singapore propose agroforestry in cocoa farms. This may be difficult to meet the increasing & speedy demand for cocoa to manufacture chocolate, but can save the damage to environment and stop many species of animals being endangered. However, due to higher costs, particularly labor & the slow process of harvesting, the agroforestry option isn't as viable as conventional farming thus difficult to practice in reality. Chocolate companies such as Ferrero, Nestle, Lindt, Mondelez, Ritter sport, Olam and Cargill have signed an agreement where they should not buy any cocoa from illegal farms. For this strategy, the government of Ivory coast put GPS tracking in farms and track down any beans that was grown from illegal farms that are in protected forests, as well as national parks, and reject the cocoa beans.

Bibliography

https://getpocket.com/a/read/2412554335 Africa cocoa industry failing on deforestation pledge – campaigners

https://getpocket.com/a/read/2501217559 Effects & Impact

https://getpocket.com/a/read/751087011 Cadbury diary milk