A Moral Contradiction

The history of chocolate spans centuries; yet while many people enjoy the sweet treat, far fewer understand just how deeply chocolate’s history is embroiled in traditions of controversy, violence, and racialized prejudice. This blog post will narrate one small yet impactful period in chocolate’s history, concerning one of the biggest players in chocolate’s history and present: Cadbury. At the turn of the 20th century, the then-called Cadbury Bros. company found itself wrapped up in an international scandal over its business ethics, and more specifically their labor practices. This controversy did not only concern economic practices, but also political affairs of Britain, Portugal, and their condoning of colonial extralegal slavery (not in name, but in practice) in the Carribean. From 1905 to 1914, journalist Henry Nevinson sought to hold Cadbury accountable — in court — for their purchase of cocoa beans from the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe (Satre 12), , despite the fact that the beans were the product of illegal, brutal enslavement and forced labor of native and African people. Though Cadbury condemned slavery in name, the company imported tens of millions of pounds of cocoa beans from São Tomé and Príncipe between 1900 and 1910 — nearly a century after slavery had been legally abolished in Britain (though certainly not practically or economically). Over the course of this period, challenges to Cadbury’s company business ethics in Sao Tome versus in Britain reveal an apparent disregard for the violence against thousands of enslaved laborers, despite their proclaimed intentions to enact fair labor practices within their company.

Workers at the Cadbury chocolate factory in Bournville, England (NPR 2010) 

John Cadbury first opened his tea and coffee shop in Birmingham, England in 1824. After incorporating use of the newly invented hydraulic press, the company finally gained success in the 1860s. Cadbury grew into a factory business, employing 3,310 workers by 1900–in whom the owners “took a paternalistic interest” (Satre 15). This was because the Cadbury brothers were proud pillars of Britain’s Quaker community, and aimed to run their company “in accordance with Quaker tenet in providing aid to those less fortunate” (Satre 15). Despite long hours and close control over the employees, Cadbury factory jobs were highly sought after. According to a 2010 interview with descendant Deborah Cadbury:“”As soon as they were able,” Cadbury says, “they were doing things like raising the wages of their workforce, introducing Saturdays off, introducing pensions, introducing unemployment benefits and sickness benefits, and even free doctors, free dentists and vitamin pills for staff” (NPR 2010). However, despite an emphasis on fair conditions at home, Cadbury’s actions abroad painted a very different picture of their labor ethics.

After visiting Trinidad in 1901, William Adlington Cadbury (1867-1957) was tasked to investigate reports that slave labour was producing Cadbury’s cacao beans on São Tomé (Satre 18). Though W. Cadbury claimed overall ignorance about conditions on São Tomé and Príncipe at this time, the chocolate firm had purchased over 45% of its cocoa beans from the island by 1900 (Satre). Moreover, nearly eight years passed before decisive action was taken about Cadbury’s influence on the slave contract labor being used on the islands. Curiously, this period of lack of action coincides with a series of donations made to the Anti-Slvery Society in Britain by William’s brother George, a member, totaling to 510 pounds between 1900 and 1908 (Satre 21). Throughout this time, extended investigations, written and rewritten reports, suppressed publication of the controversy in British news (on the part of Cadbury), and diplomatic meetings between governments and chocolate companies resulted in no action until 1908 at the latest. Moreover, Henry Nevinson’s report, a project begun in 1905, was not available to the British public until 1908 (Satre). Meanwhile, William Cadbury spoke many times on record about opposing slavery yet vehemently opposed a boycott of purchasing the islands’ cocoa amongst the coalition of chocolate makers in Britain. In fact, he explictly went on record saying that his firm would like to continue purchasing cocoa from the islands (Higgs).

Though his Quaker anti-slavery humantarianism was expressed publicly, it seemed not to extend to the laborers in Sao Tome, based on the company’s extensive purchases of Sao Tome’s cocoa throughout this period: in 1902 Cadbury Bros. alone purchased 20% of São Tomé and Príncipe’s cocoa. This number decreased by 1907 (likely due to the pressure applied by journalists like Henry Nevinson)–to around 13% of Sao Tome’s total cocoa export, around 7.4 million pounds. This amount is still significant despite the change over time, especially when considering the violence experienced by thousands of enslaved laborers all for the sake of this export. According to Satre, Sao Tome held a total of around 40,000 slave laborers and Principe held around 3000 laborers at this time. He goes on to explain that 14% of laborers died in São Tomé died every year, and 20% of laborers died in Príncipe every year. This means that during this 8-year period of reluctant inaction on the part of Cadbury to address their investment in slave labor as a means to fund their business growth, a total of 43,200 enslaved peoples died. With regards to the company’s business ethics, this tends to reveal an interesting practice: that is, to keep a clean home but leave muddy shoes outside the door, so to speak.

These challenges to Cadbury’s business ethics remind me of a quote from artist Felix von der Weppen on his series “Chocolate Slavery” (above): “I wanted to create images that lead the viewer into a moral contradiction between desire and rejection. Hands stand for the power of action of individuals. By losing the power to act, we lose liberty, equality and are most likely controlled or enslaved by others” (Cargo Collective). Within the context of Cadbury’s inaction — not to mention today’s chocolate makers continued investment in forced labor — the violent impact of business practices like Cadbury’s during this period on human lives becomes even more salient.

Sources

Satre, Lowell, 2005. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business.

NPR, 2010. “The Sweet, Social Legacy of Cadbury Chocolate.”

Higgs, Catherine, 2012. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa.

Cargo Collective, “Stop Chocolate Slavery.”

Images

NPR, 2010. “The Sweet, Social Legacy of Cadbury Chocolate.”.

Satre. 

Felix von der Weppen’s “Chocolate Slavery.”

“A White Woman Dipped in Chocolate” Misogynoir and Cocoa Throughout History

When an aptly named German chocolate brand “Super Dickmann’s” posted this image of Meghan Markle, some people got upset while others laughed at their sensitivity.

The infamous tweet depicting mixed-race Meghan Markle as a chocolate-covered marshmallow

The German employee in charge of the corporate Facebook account was likely not aware that the comparison between African women and chocolate is imbued with historical misogynoir. Misogynoir, a term coined by black feminist Moya Bailey (Anyangwe, 2015), is double discrimination faced by black women where bias is both race and gender-based (Verve Team, 2018).

While women have long been seen as buyers, preparers and religious devotees of chocolate, the earliest depictions associated with chocolate were those of infants such as cupids or angels (Martin, 2020). Later, chocolate became associated with an idealized image of white womanhood, as society women became an important consumer demographic. An 1874 New York Times issue announced that wealthy women were the biggest purchasers of an “elaborate style of French candies.” New ads featured elegant white women and were meant to appeal to both the tastes of upper-class consumers and the aspirations of lower-class ones (Robertson, 2010).

Aspirational chocolate advertisements, such as this image from the 1970s, continued into the late 20th century

Such ads put white consumers at the forefront and minimized chocolate’s roots in West African agriculture. Romanticized images of white agricultural workers such as of this milkmaid carrying pails attempted to further erase chocolates’ African origins (Robertson, 2010).

Early 20th century Cadbury advertisement

These fictionalized images associated the labor required to produce chocolate with “wholesome whiteness” in the minds of consumers (Robertson, 2010). Notably, a 1930 Cadbury ad that does feature African women, shows them as faceless silhouettes balancing baskets brimming with cocoa pods on their heads (Robertson, 2010). While white women associated with chocolate were bestowed with good taste and wholesomeness, black women were dehumanized and fetishized through racist depictions.

In 1947 a new character “Honeybunch” was created to advertise Rowntree’s Cocoa (Robertson, 2010). Honeybunch looked infantile – barefoot and with bows in her hair. In this ad, she is dehumanized through the juxtaposition of her “imagined” character to “real” white people in the ad (Robertson, 2010).

Honeybunch and “real” white consumers

A 1950 ad goes further to depict Honeybunch as a spring bouncing out of tin of cocoa – an example of a common trope of Africans drawn as actual cocoa (Robertson, 2010) This association of a person with an edible object further solidifies the idea that black people are false commodities (Polanyi, 2001). According to Polanyi, labor is one of those fictitious commodities to which the market mechanisms should not apply (2001). According to Polanyi, not only labor but also the laborer can become commodities for sale if the commodity function of labor is prioritized (2001). Commodity function of labor is the low labor cost for the sake of lower prices, and in the case of chocolate, low labor costs help support higher remuneration for cocoa processors and chocolate producers instead of African workers. This problem persists into modernity: according to the Cocoa Barometer, cocoa farmer households earn merely 37% of living income in Côte d’Ivoire, the leader in cocoa bean production supplying 40% of world’s cocoa (2018).

Blackness is also objectified and commodified through the association between black skin and chocolate – a trope that still pervades today. Food-related descriptions have long been used to describe dark skin. While light foundation shades are often called “nude” or “fair,” darker shades are often named after commodities such as cocoa or coffee. This further solidifies the toxic idea that white womanhood is the default, and objectifies black womanhood through comparisons with edible objects.

A 2004 ice cream advertisement conceived in Brazil

Even black women of the same status as the white women in chocolate ads are not immune to dehumanizing fetishization. In 1976, a magazine editor described supermodel Iman as “a white woman dipped in chocolate,” (Oliver, 2015). The editor’s baffling comment is akin to Charlie’s question about whether the Oompa Loompas, which were distinctly African in the original book, are made out of chocolate (Robertson, 2010).

The fact that class cannot protect black women from misogynoir sheds critical light on “respectability politics,” an ideology that emphasizes the need for black people to gain respect and “uplift the race” by correcting ‘undesirable” characteristics and embodying desirable ones (Harris, 2014). Racist treatment of Iman despite her social prominence parallels the way companies such as Rowntree or Cadbury used depictions of black girls and women like Honeybunch for their “distinct difference” while dehumanizing them.

Pat McGrath, one of the most prominent makeup artists of the century, also had a cocoa related story that shed light on how designers who hire black models failed to provide them with equal supplies. McGrath often had to use cocoa powder on set because she wasn’t provided with darker makeup shades (Prinzivalli, 2019).

A group of black women has found a way to use the association between dark skin and chocolate for their benefit, creating a food-inspired makeup brand “Beauty Bakerie,” which counts cocoa-flavored powder among its products.

The “Beauty Bakerie” website

And what about Pat McGrath who had to use food instead of makeup? Her beauty empire is now worth almost a billion dollars – and her dark foundation colors are named Medium Deep and Deep instead of cocoa and chocolate (Mpinja, 2018).

Sources:

Anyangwe, E. (2015, October 5). Misogynoir: where racism and sexism meet. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/05/what-is-misogynoir

Fountain, A and Friedel, H. (2018). Cocoa Barometer

Harris, F.C. (2014). The Rise of Respectability Politics. Dissent 61(1), 33-37. doi:10.1353/dss.2014.0010.

Mpinja, B. (2018, July 23). Why Makeup Artist Pat McGrath Is the Self-Made Beauty Billionaire We Need. Retrieved from https://www.allure.com/story/pat-mcgrath-self-made-billionaire-success

Phillip, N. (2018, October 23). My Very Personal Taste of Racism Abroad. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/travel/racism-travel-italy-study-abroad.html

Oliver, D. (2015, September 10). Iman Opens Up About Deeply Upsetting Career Moment. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/iman-racism-fashion-industry_n_55f02b31e4b002d5c0775000

Polanyi, karl. The great transformation: the political and economic origins of our time. Boston: bEACON, 2001. Prin

Prinzivalli, L. (2019, May 21). Why Makeup Artist Pat McGrath Grew Up Using Cocoa Powder as Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.allure.com/story/pat-mcgrath-cocoa-powder-foundation-dark-skin-tone-shades

Robertson, Emma. 2010. Chocolate, Women and Empire: A Social and Cultural History.

Team, V. E. R. V. E. (2018, September 4). Feminist Facts: What is Misogynoir? Retrieved from https://medium.com/verve-up/feminist-facts-what-is-misogynoir-5392c29d6aab

Cadbury Chocolate: Cacao, Colonialism and Conscientious Capitalism?

Pious Captains of Industry at Home

The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain saw the rise of three Quaker families: Fry, Cadbury, and Rowntree. For a long time, the Quakers were a persecuted religious minority, and as such, they were barred from entering politics. Instead, they applied their industry to great success in business. Particularly, the three aforementioned families became very successful in the chocolate industry, dominating the British markets by the turn of the 20th century (Satre 14). And these Quaker families took their religion seriously, even in their spheres of business. As Coe and Coe note, “Being Quakers, [the three families] had a social conscience in the midst of all this money-making, unlike many other Victorian captains of industry” (250). For example, the families were involved in the antislavery efforts of the 17th and 18th centuries (Satre 14). Seebohm Rowntree and Edward Cadbury gained recognition for studying the terrible conditions of the working class in Britain (Satre 78).

Probably the most notable of the three families was Cadbury. Translating their religious convictions into practice, the Cadburys built a model factory town in the Birmingham suburb of Bournville that included homes, a communal bath, and recreational facilities for the workers; unsurprisingly, the town was a massive success, and the company had to expand its facilities multiple times to cope with the high demand (Coe and Coe 250; Satre 15–16). During a time of ruthless exploitation of the working class, the Quaker families stood out as conscientious capitalists.

Packing room at Bournville, circa 1903. Notice most of the workers shown in the picture are young women.

However, not all of Cadbury’s actions were without controversy. Most of the Cadbury employees were single women (hired in order to keep the costs low), and many of them were unable to live in Bournville due to the relatively high rent (Satre 16). To them, Bournville was something of a tantalizing paradise. Perhaps a more grievous injury to Cadbury’s reputation occurred during the food adulteration scandal that swept across Victorian era Britain. As the demand for chocolate continued to grow, many confectionaries adulterated their products with cheaper ingredients such as starch and even ground-up bricks. Even Cadbury’s products were shown to have been adulterated with starch and flour. Instead of being apologetic, the company went on the “advertising offensive,” using the slogan “Absolutely Pure, Therefore Best” to claim that only their chocolate was now trustworthy. Questions of hypocrisy or morality aside, the tactic was very successful, helping Cadbury’s to edge out Fry as the preeminent chocolate company in Britain (Coe and Coe 253).

Slavery in Portuguese West Africa

Portugal abolished slavery in 1761, but this decision did not extend to her colonies until 1875 (Satre 33). At the time, São Tomé and Príncipe was a center of cacao production, which constantly required manual labor. And while the supply was outlawed, the demand only kept rising, as chocolate’s popularity continued to grow in Europe and the United States. Thus, the Portuguese devised a new system of “contract labor” called serviçais, which made the workers “free” on paper. The serviçais were to work a specified period of time (often five years) on cacao plantations (roças) with pay, and were supposed to be able to leave after their tenure if they desired.

Portuguese São Tomé, circa 1670.

In reality, the serviçais system was simply slavery reworded. Between 20,000 and 40,000 serviçais slaved away on 230 roças in São Tomé, and another 1,000 worked under the scorching heat on 50 roças on Príncipe (Satre 10). Almost none of the serviçais were ever repatriated, and their contracts were often “renewed” without their input (Satre 11). Furthermore, the children of serviçais were considered to be the property of the plantation owners.

The Seven-Year Wait

William Cadbury (1867–1957) was the grandson of John Cadbury, the patriarch of the family. He was in charge of buying materials for the family business; of course, the key ingredient was cacao. In 1901, while on a business trip to the West Indies, William Cadbury first heard about the presence of slave cacao labor in São Tomé and Príncipe (Satre 18). This disturbing news was then corroborated further when Cadbury’s received an offer for a São Tomé cacao plantation that included the sale of 200 black “laborers” for a sum of money (Satre 18). Given the strong religious convictions of the family, the possibility of Cadbury using slave labor to furnish their products was a dire one, especially given that over 45% of the cacao purchased by the company in 1900 came from São Tomé (Satre 19).

William Cadbury

For the next seven years, William Cadbury was involved in a struggle to improve the working conditions of the serviçais, though the process was painfully slow in the eyes of some. Satre also wonders how the Cadburys only heard about the existence of slavery in Portuguese West Africa in 1901, given the extensive evidence available among the Protestant circles by the late 19th century (21). In any case, Cadbury wanted to move slowly, expressing reservations about the veracity of the bill of sale he had received (Satre 19). In 1903, Cadbury traveled to Lisbon to meet with the Portuguese government, who promised that conditions would improve once new regulations passed that year would kick in. More time stalled there, while many doubted the new regulation would have any effect.

Eventually, Cadbury decided to send a representative to travel down to Portuguese West Africa and examine the labor conditions in person. That representative was Joseph Burtt, who arrived in São Tomé in June 1905 and spent two years documenting life on the cacao roças. Burtt returned in 1907, having been convinced of the evils of the serviçais system: “If this is not slavery, I know of no word in the English language which correctly characterises it” (Higgins 137). Even with this piece of decisive evidence, Cadbury spent more time haggling with the British government on whether or not to publicize Burtt’s report. In September 1907, when some called for the boycott of cacao from São Tomé and Príncipe, Cadbury gave a speech opposing the measure (Higgins 137-38). Then, in October 1908, Cadbury decided to visit São Tomé and Príncipe with Burtt, taking stock of the situation himself. Finally, after seven years, Cadbury had made up his mind. His company would boycott cacao grown by slaves in São Tomé and Príncipe.

Between 1901 and 1908, Cadbury still purchased £1.3 million of cacao grown by the sweat and blood of the serviçais in São Tomé and Príncipe. Why did it take Cadbury seven years to decisively act on the information that he knew quite reliably? Perhaps his religious idealism clashed with the realities of running a successful business. Cacao was absolutely vital to the success of his family’s enterprise, and stirring the pot in Portuguese West Africa must not have been an easy move when his company greatly depended on it. Additionally, it was probably easier to apply his religious principles in initiatives in close to home. Whatever the case was, Cadbury has certainly left a complex legacy in the history of chocolate, being at the forefront of progress and reform on certain occasions and dragging its feet at other times.

References

Coe, Sophie and Michael Coe. 2013. The True History of Chocolate. Thames and Hudson. London, UK.

Satre, Lowell Joseph. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business. Ohio Univ. Press, 2006.

Higgs, Catherine. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Ohio University Press, 2013.

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Barrow Cadbury by Thomas Bowman Garvie.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Johannes Vingboons – ‘t eylant St. Thome (1665).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Packing room, Bournville – Project Gutenberg eText 16035.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Cadbury Company Business Ethics: Repeating the Mistakes of the Past

By the 1900’s, the British chocolate industry was dominated by Cadbury, Fry, and Rowntree, which were three Quaker-owned firms. In response to the exponential increase of consumer demand for cocoa products across Western Europe and the United States, these companies quickly became dependent on contract labor from West African colonies, where cocoa beans were produced and exported to Europe. Between 1901 and 1908, Cadbury had purchased £1.3 million worth of cocoa supply from the Portuguese colony of São Tomé.^[1]Despite Portugal’s official abolition of chattel slavery in its colonies, native laborers in São Tomé were subjugated to slavery-like conditions, under which the annual mortality rate was as high as 20%. Although Cadbury became aware of its inadvertent contribution to these rampant human rights violations as early as 1904, the company’s failure to publicly raise this issue for six years sparked considerable controversy over the British chocolate industry’s business ethics. Following a week-long public trial to determine whether the firm was aware that it had been purchasing slave-produced cocoa, British consumers and humanitarians alike heavily criticized Cadbury’s lack of business ethics, tainting its reputation and demonstrating strong public intolerance for such exploitative practices. Unfortunately, such egregious labor rights violations remain pervasive today in the international chocolate industry, as best reflected in the case of Cadbury. Similar to how concerns regarding Cadbury’s sales and supply chain discouraged the company’s executives from responding quickly to slavery on São Tomé in the 1900’s, the incentive system of global financial markets today continues to pressure Cadbury and other public companies to maximize profits for investors at the expense of their workers and even cocoa farmers. 

            While Cadbury became aware of ongoing slave labor on São Tomé in 1904, the company officials’ concerns about profitability significantly delayed their decision to report the horrific labor conditions there and cut their chocolate supply from the island. William Cadbury, grandson of the firm’s founder, clearly bided his time, as he took seven years to take action and make his report on slave labor conditions in São Tomé public. As stated by historian Lowell Satre, Cadbury executives only chose to release their findings when it became evident that a media outlet would publish a story about their inaction, making them fear “that [the] article might force them to give up São Tomé cocoa.”^[2]Furthermore, during the trial to settle Cadbury Brothers’ lawsuit against a newspaper that accused them of slave labor exploitation, William Cadbury answered evasively when lawyer Edward Carson asked “what the effect might have been on chocolate sales if the Daily News had covered the cocoa controversy as vigorously as it had reported alleged Chinese slavery in the Transvaal’s mines.”^[3]His answer that consumers would have continued to buy Cadbury products if they knew all that the firm had done for São Tomé’s workers was far from believable, as the company received severe criticism from many consumers and suffered a public relations nightmare immediately following the trial. 

            In part due to the incentive structure of modern-day capital markets and corporate finance, multinational chocolate manufacturing companies today continue to engage in appalling labor exploitation as a means of increasing their enterprise value and returns for shareholders. Under the currently prevailing system of global corporate finance, the monetary compensation of a firm’s management team is directly tied to the company’s financial performance. Senior executives and employees of large, publicly traded companies are often rewarded with stock options that enable them to purchase shares of the company’s stock at a specified strike price. Such options are more profitable for the individual when the current stock price is high, while the company’s stock price is heavily dependent on the firm’s ability to meet the expectations of both investors and securities analysts. For this reason, managers of major companies frequently face earnings pressure, which is the pressure to meet securities analysts’ earnings forecasts, and “may [consequently] make business decisions to improve short-term earnings.”^[4]

Mondelēz International’s 5-Year Stock Chart: This chart (created by myself) demonstrates the major impact of meeting (or failing to meet) earnings forecasts on a company’s stock price, illustrating the “earnings pressure” that managers may face.

Embroiled in a series of recent public controversies, Cadbury’s management team has demonstrated their inclination to prioritize immediate profit maximization over the conditions of their workers and even cocoa farmers time and time again. In 2011, a 26-year-old factory worker for Cadbury Egypt ” lost half his thumb while operating a machine which should normally be run by three persons,” after which he immediately lost his job. This was the same factory that removed five union leaders in 2012 following protests over the company’s refusal to pay a government-mandated wage increase.^[5] In 2017, Cadbury stirred further controversy when it announced that it would remove the Fairtrade certification from its chocolate bars in favor of its own sustainability program.^[6]Although the company promises to continue meeting the requirements associated with the Fairtrade logo, such as paying farmers a minimum price of cocoa, this move critically reduced the transparency of Cadbury’s practices and set a poor precedent for other corporations that may opt out of the Fairtrade scheme.  As such, Mondelēz International, the company that now owns Cadbury, was ranked among the lowest of the 15 major chocolate brands in the Green America 2019 Scorecard due to “insufficient measures for ensuring human rights, fair wages, sustainability and transparency in their cocoa supply chains.”^[7]

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Green America’s Ratings of the 15 Largest Global Chocolate Brands: As confirmed by this chart, Mondelēz International lacks the same level of transparency and commitment to labor rights as many peer companies.

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In spite of the national backlash against Cadbury’s delayed response to slave labor in São Tomé in the early twentieth century, multinational chocolate corporations today still perpetuate various forms of labor exploitation as a means of enhancing profitability levels. Although both governments and international human rights organizations have played a key role in establishing universal labor rights, the incentive structure of modern-day corporate finance has increased the pressure on such large firms, including Cadbury, to maximize their economic value and shareholder returns at the expense of their own workers. Cadbury and Mondelēz International’s recent public controversies demonstrate the need for humanitarian organizations, as well as the local governments in the regions where these corporations operate, to monitor such companies’ business practices more closely and actively punish unethical behavior. 

^[1]Catherine Higgs, Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012), 151. 

^[2]Lowell Joseph Satre, Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 81. 

^[3]Higgs, Chocolate Islands, 151.

^[4]Yu Zhang and Javier Gimeno, “Earnings Pressure and Long-Term Corporate Governance: Can Long-Term-Oriented Investors and Managers Reduce the Quarterly Earnings Obsession?,” Organization Science 27, no. 2 (2016): 1. 

^[5]UFCW, “IUF Workers Being Abused at Mondelez International,” UFCW Safety & Health, last modified March 26, 2013, accessed March 25, 2020, http://safetyandhealth.ufcw.org/. 

^[6]Zlata Rodionova, “Cadbury withdraws from Fairtrade chocolate scheme but keeps logo on packaging,” The Independent (London), November 28, 2016.

^[7]Green America, “Child Labor in Your Chocolate? Check Our Chocolate Scorecard,” Green America, last modified October 16, 2019, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.greenamerica.org. 

Bibliography

Green America. “Child Labor in Your Chocolate? Check Our Chocolate Scorecard.” Green America. Last modified October 16, 2019. Accessed March 25, 2020. https://www.greenamerica.org.

———. “2019 Chocolate Scorecard.” Chart. Green America. October 16, 2019. Accessed March 25, 2020. https://www.greenamerica.org.

Higgs, Catherine. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012.

Rodionova, Zlata. “Cadbury withdraws from Fairtrade chocolate scheme but keeps logo on packaging.” The Independent(London), November 28, 2016.

Satre, Lowell Joseph. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005.

UFCW. “IUF Workers Being Abused at Mondelez International.” UFCW Safety & Health. Last modified March 26, 2013. Accessed March 25, 2020. http://safetyandhealth.ufcw.org/.

Zhang, Yu, and Javier Gimeno. “Earnings Pressure and Long-Term Corporate Governance: Can Long-Term-Oriented Investors and Managers Reduce the Quarterly Earnings Obsession?” Organization Science27, no. 2 (2016).

Changing Consumer Preferences in Chocolate During the Industrial Revolution

Chocolate, the bittersweet delicious treat that most everyone in the western world grew up eating, has taken on various different roles in society throughout its surprisingly significant lifespan. From 1900 BC to our modern day existence, chocolate has been everything from a form of sustenance, to a currency, to a ritualistic decoration, and now a sugary treat that we give to children and loved ones. Of particular interest and significance, though, is the period from 1600-1800, when European consumption preferences caused chocolate to go from an exotic snack to a full fledged industrialized foodstuff that powered economies and increased the slave trade. That period marks a permanent change in the history of chocolate, one best described as a case study in rising capitalism meeting changing consumer preferences to create an entirely new industry. 

The earliest evidence of the existence of chocolate is found in research of the Olmec Civilization (Dakin and Wichmann, 2000:66). The Olmec Civilization flourished in Mesoamerica prior to the Maya or Aztec civilizations arising, and like their predecessors the Olmec used chocolate for both consumption and in ritual (Dakin and Wichmann, 2000:66). For centuries, chocolate, and the cacao from which it is made, was consumed in relatively small portions. No plantations existed for the sole purpose of farming cacao, nor did it ever occur to create one. Sophie and Michael Coe, authors of The True History of Chocolate, detailed how the Aztecs “considered chocolate a far more desirable beverage [than octli their native drink], especially for warriors and nobility” (Coe and Coe, 2013:154). Today we romanticize the Aztec chocolate habits with false pictures and recipes like the one displayed here. The Aztecs, who ruled proudly until 1521 when they were all but wiped out, were one of the civilizations to introduce chocolate to Europeans.

Europeans, specifically the Spanish, encountered chocolate for the first time in 1502 when Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ what would become a continental obsession (Coe and Coe, 2013:217). It wasn’t until 1544, though, when “Dominican friars took a delegation of Maya nobles to visit Prince Phillip in Spain” that chocolate truly entered the European consciousness (Coe and Coe, 2013:262). By the early 1600s Spaniards had begun manufacturing chocolate for public consumption. By the mid 1600s, recipes including cinnamon and sugar had popped up (Coe and Coe, 2013:269). By the 1800s chocolate was a full-blown obsession. Chocolate was becoming more and more popular in Europe, and in order to keep up with demand Europeans began doing to chocolate what they did to so many other things during the same time period: industrialized. 

In 1828 Coenraad Johannes Van Houten developed a hydraulic press capable of industrializing the labor intensive and inefficient process of separating chocolate liquor into cocoa butter and cocoa powder. He also added salts to the cocoa around the same time period, darkening the colour and changing the flavor of the end product (Coe and Coe, 2013:483-484). This invention marked a change in the production of chocolate that would never go back to the largely small scale, artisanal industry it was before. The inventions, combined with a Pennsylvanian named Joseph Fry’s use of a steam engine to grind cacao beans, allowed chocolate production to become much easier, faster, and more efficient (Coe and Coe, 2013:485-486). Here is a picture of Van Houten’s original hydraulic press used for chocolate.

Another factor that contributed to the boom in chocolate production was the increased demand from working class Europeans. During the 19th century the industrial revolution was in full swing all across Europe. While that meant great progress, both socially and economically, it also brought about many issues including large-scale poverty. With the new ability to mass-manufacture chocolate prices came down dramatically. Chocolate was no longer a food for only the select elite to enjoy. On the meager wages of a factory worker one could enjoy a uniformly produced, sweet chocolate bar. Industrial workers caused a massive boost in popularity of chocolate in the mid-to-late 19th century (Poelmans and Swinnen, 2019:13). Chocolate was fueling the industrial revolution, and the industrial revolution was in turn fueling chocolate in a period of absolutely enormous growth. Between 1870 and 1940 production of chocolate and imports for cacao beans in Europe and North America grew by over 90x (Poelmans and Swinnen, 2019:13). It is truly one of the most stunning and lucrative periods of growth in economic history. 

The explosion of chocolate production caused a dip in ‘quality.’ No longer was chocolate a frothy beverage used for energy. Instead, chocolate was barely even cacao anymore, diluted as it was with alkalized salts, sugars, spices, and other ingredients to create a sweet treat suitable for all members of society. Millions of people consumed chocolate annually, but now primarily from larger companies that had cropped up like Hershey’s, Cadbury, and Nestlé and not smaller chocolate makers. By the middle of the 20th century the chocolate revolution was complete. The product was now unrecognizable from where it started in Mesoamerica, and so too was the world. 

A modern day Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Today we rarely remember or know much about the original recipes and consumption habits surrounding chocolate. All we know is the sugary, delicious but bastardized version of the snack that surrounds us in every grocery store and local corner deli. This change was caused for both social consumption preferences, as well as underlying economic tailwinds. Today, the chocolate industry is strong as ever and shows no signs of slowing down, continuing to perpetuate the European recipes which have taken over the world.

Works Cited

1. Dakin, Karen and Soren Wichmann. 2000. Cacao and Chocolate: An Uto-Aztecan Perspective. Ancient Mesoamerica vol. 11. Cambridge University Press.
2. Coe, Sophie and Michael Coe. 2013. The True History of Chocolate. Thames and Hudson. London, UK.
3. Poelmans, Eline and Johan F. M. Swinnen. 2019. A Brief Economic History of Chocolate. LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance. Mannheim, Ger.
4. Fiegl, Amanda. 2008. “A Brief History of Chocolate.” Smithsonianmag. Accessed March 24 10:53PM <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-brief-history-of-chocolate-21860917/>
5. SPAGnVOLA Chocolatier. Accessed March 24, 11:02PM <https://www.pinterest.com/pin/547117054703050487/>
6. Wikimedia Commons. Accessed March 24, 11:48PM <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hershey-bar-open.JPG>

Sugar, Cocoa, and Slavery in Portuguese Colonial Africa

Slave labor fueled the sugar industry ‒ and, later, the cocoa industry ‒ in Portugal’s island colonies in the Atlantic for centuries. Though slavery was officially abolished in Portugal’s colonies in the 1870s, it was quickly replaced with forced labor that left indentured São Toméans toiling on sugar plantations for little or no pay up until the early twentieth century. Slavery and forced labor played huge roles in the history of the chocolate industry, and their historical ties to Portuguese sugar cane and cocoa exports cannot be ignored.

Early Sugar Production in the Atlantic Colonies

A map of Portugal and its colonies, in red, alongside principal Portuguese trade routes, in green, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.¹

Sugar consumption in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was starkly different than it is today. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, sugar was still largely only accessible to the wealthy, and was most commonly used as a spice or medicine.²

While sugar was still nowhere near being the commodity it is today, its production proved to be strategic for other reasons. The Portuguese realized that securing colonial territories in the Atlantic could be useful to the end of monopolizing essential trade routes, and so soon began establishing sugar cane plantations along their Atlantic island territories in order to safeguard these trade routes.³ Sugar plantations, or roças, were established on the islands of the Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe, and later in the continental African colonies of Angola and Mozambique.

[Portugal’s island colonies in the Atlantic] were situated in strategic locations with respect to wind systems and ocean currents. Portugal’s control of the sea lanes in the Atlantic ‒ and later to Asia ‒ were to depend on her ability to secure the islands as bases.

Sidney M. Greenfield⁴

In Angola and Mozambique, these sugar cane plantations were powered by the unpaid labor of enslaved natives. Portugal’s  island colonies in the Atlantic had no native populations, however, and so the Portuguese imported enslaved people from its colonies on the African continent to toil on the island plantations in place of Portuguese settlers.⁵

The value of sugar skyrocketed over the next several hundred years, surpassing that of even tobacco.⁶ By 1900, sugar represented approximately “one-sixth of per-capita caloric intake” among Europeans.⁷ Sugar plantations became a vital part of the world economy as the global demand for sugar increased, and the Portuguese were willing to go to great lengths to protect the incredible wealth they had created in the Atlantic on the backs of slaves.

Cocoa Plantations and Forced Labor in São Tomé and Príncipe

Portugal abolished slavery in 1761, but ruled that this abolition should not be extended to its colonies abroad. The decision to end slavery in the colonies did not come until 1869, and was not actually implemented until the mid-1870s.⁹ The economies of the Portuguese colonies had been built entirely upon the unpaid labor of abducted African people; as such, the Portuguese government soon began looking for ways to lessen the economic blow that abolishing slavery in its colonies would undoubtedly cause. Eventually a new labor system was implemented in the colonies wherein former slaves could “sign contracts committing themselves to five years of labor at a set wage.”¹⁰

In reality, these so-called contracts were either coerced, forged, or simply never existed in the first place. These serviçais, as they were called ‒ the Portuguese word for servants ‒ were slaves whose lives, labor, and freedom were being stolen for the profit of the Portuguese empire.

An undated São Toméan postcard featuring a photograph of serviçais working at Roça Boa Entrada, one of the largest cocoa plantations in São Tomé and Príncipe.⁸

As the global demand for chocolate began to increase around the mid-1800s alongside the global demand for sugar, some of Portugal’s Atlantic colonies began producing cocoa on plantations nearly identical to the sugar cane roças. The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe soon became hubs of cheap, large-scale cocoa production powered by the new serviçal labor system.

The Cadbury and Fry chocolate companies, both located in England, were two of several buyers of cocoa from the roças of São Tomé and Príncipe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. English journalist Henry Nevinson published an exposé of the abhorrent labor conditions of serviçais in Portuguese colonial Africa in his 1906 novel A Modern Slavery, but neither Cadbury nor Fry made an effort to source their cocoa elsewhere once these revelations came to light. Instead, unconvinced ‒ or perhaps willfully ignorant ‒ William Cadbury sent Joseph Burtt to investigate labor conditions in São Tomé and Príncipe for himself in 1907.¹¹

When Burtt’s report confirmed Nevinson’s findings, it was not well received. The British secretary of state urged Burtt to edit his report to be less damning of the Portuguese government, essentially watering down the atrocity of what was actually happening overseas in the name of diplomacy while simultaneously delaying the publication of the report.¹² Nevinson saw Burtt’s report as a weak summary of his own work, and published articles in several newspapers advocating for the boycott of Cadbury and Fry chocolate companies until their cocoa was no longer associated with São Toméan slave labor.¹³ While said boycott never actually took place, the scandal was enough to push Cadbury and Fry to officially stop buying São Toméan cocoa in March of 1909.¹⁴

Modern Cocoa Production in Post-Colonial Africa

Following the Cadbury slave labor scandal, cocoa production in São Tomé and Príncipe began to dwindle. The chocolate companies that had once been loyal customers of São Toméan cocoa began sourcing their cocoa from countries like Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire instead. By the time São Tomé became independent in 1975, the cocoa industry there had fallen “into neglect,”¹⁵ and nearly one-quarter of all cocoa farmers in São Tomé were living below the poverty line.¹⁶

It wasn’t until 2009, when the United Nations’ International Fund for Agriculture began “working with farmers on the island to produce Fair Trade cocoa beans using a co-operative model,”¹⁷ that prospects for the cocoa industry in São Tomé and Príncipe slowly began to improve. Fair trade farmer’s co-operatives ensure that São Toméan cocoa farmers are finally appropriately compensated for their labor after centuries of being forced to provide this labor for free.

Fair trade chocolate practices ensure that African cocoa farmers are appropriately compensated for their labor.¹⁸

Works Cited

1. Image from Biblioteca Escolar, https://docplayer.com.br/74086840-Portugal-sec-xv-e-xvi.html.
2. Mintz, Sidney W.  Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1985, p. 30.
3. Ibid, p. 30.
4. Greenfield, Sidney M. “Plantations, Sugar Cane, and Slavery.” Historical Reflections,  vol. 6, no. 1 (1979), pp. 85‒119. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41330419, p. 87.
5. Ibid, p. 103.
6. Mintz, p. 36. [n 1]
7. Ibid, p. 149.
8. Image from Ansichtskartenpool historical postcards, https://www.akpool.co.uk/postcards/28291659-postcard-so-tom-und-prncipe-roca-boa-entrada-chegada-do-cacao.
9. Satre, Lowell J. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005, p. 3.
10. Ibid, p. 3.
11. Ibid, p. 13.
12. Higgs, Catherine. “Cadbury, Burtt, and Portuguese Africa.” Chapter in Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2012, pp. 133‒154, p. 133.
13. Ibid, p. 137.
14. Ibid, p. 148.
15. Constable, Harriet. “Cocoa industry returns to São Tomé.” Geographical. 30 August 2018, https://geographical.co.uk/people/development/item/2889-sao-tome, p. 5.
16. Plaut, Martin. “Chocolate boost for São Tomé farmers.” BCC News. 7 March 2011, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12261276, p. 11.
17. Constable, p. 5. [n 15]
18. Video from Equal Exchange, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnpsFRcsnE0.

Who's to Blame: Cadbury's Involvement in Slave Labor

The Cadbury chocolate company is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world today.  Kraft/Cadbury and Mars each comprised 15% of the chocolate market in 2011, (approximately) tying for having the greatest share of the market (Statista Research Department). From its inception to now, Cadbury has presented itself as adherent to strong ethical values, having been founded as a Quaker-owned firm (Satre 14).

An advert posted by Cadbury’s YouTube channel in 2018 (Cadbury). The company appeals here to values of compassion and filial piety to market its chocolate.

But it would be gullible to believe that Cadbury has always been a perfect pillar of morality. Beneath Cadbury’s highly curated public image is a complex history of involvement in African slave labor. Although the blame for the perpetuation of this slave labor can be attributed in part to Cadbury’s business decisions, Cadbury is not alone in accountability, nor are the other chocolate companies of the era; a complex system of international relations and the situational consequences of renouncing slave labor place fault on the British and Portuguese governments and the underlying market dynamics of the time as well.    

Cadbury’s Actions

Servicais in Principe carrying cocoa to ferment (Bosspostcard).

Slave labor was commonplace in early 20th century Africa under the guise of servicais, “contract labor.” The English journalist Henry Nevinson was sent by a magazine company to investigate slavery in Portuguese West Africa in 1904, and in Angola he found child slaves and slave caravans, deceptively relabeled as “contract laborers” (Satre 2).

But even before this, William Cadbury of the Cadbury company was told in Trinidad in 1901 that slave labor was used in São Tomé (from which Cadbury had purchased over 45% of their cocoa beans in 1900), prompting the company to direct William to investigate further (Satre 18). However, William chose not to publish a bill of sale that “specifically identified human beings as property,” because he deemed its wording “not sufficiently clear to be taken as a statement of fact,” (Satre 19). Indeed, William saw much clear evidence of slave labor in the São Tomé plantations throughout his visit, yet chose to obscure the details, as he did not equate this slave labor to other forms of slavery in Africa, minimizing the nature of the labor abuse. Despite clear knowledge of the labor abuse, the Cadbury company ended up delaying seven years until 1908 to publish a report to the British public, having to hire another agent (Joseph Burtt) to investigate first (Satre 32). Only in 1909 did Cadbury formally stop buying cocoa from São Tomé’s slave plantations (Higgs 148).

A statement by William Cadbury sums up the company’s two-faced stance on slavery: “I should be sorry needlessly to injure a cultivation that as far as I can judge provides labour of the very best kind to be found in the topics: at the same time we should all like to clear our hands of any responsibility for slave traffic in any form,” (Satre 13).

Role of the British and Portuguese Governments

Cadbury is not alone in blame, however. Nevinson had written that the Portuguese government purposefully used the legal excuse of “contract labor” to smooth over the injustice so that they may profit economically, charging various duties for each slave, delivery, shipment, and so on (Satre 8). And the British were no better: Britain’s own government was just as complicit as the Portuguese in supporting African slave labor. While William Cadbury investigated the disguised slave labor in Africa, the British government was attempting to recruit the very same Portuguese-African slave labor to work in their South African mines. With these incentives, Britain was inclined to avoid antagonizing the Portuguese. This would lead Gosselin, the British minister to Lisbon, to recommend William to give the Portuguese a year before taking any action (Satre 24). Later, in 1907, when Burtt returned to Britain with a report detailing the slave labor in Africa, the British Foreign Office sought to minimize the report by not only attempting to negotiate a deal for suppressing the publication of the report, but also suggesting the publication of a modified version (Satre 74).

The inaction of the Cadbury firm doesn’t fall entirely on their own shoulders; the British government, acting on their motives to appease the Portuguese and mutually benefit from slave labor, became a voice that served to muddy the waters.

Game-Theoretic Complications in the Market Dynamics

Left: the classical Prisoner’s Dilemma, if T>R>P>S. Right: possible decision outcomes for deciding whether to boycott (C) or not (D) (Author of this blog post).

Boycotting the cocoa produced through slave labor seemed a natural solution, but initiating the boycott proved a difficult choice for any chocolate firm of the time. But why, if all companies boycotting could lead to everyone benefiting from establishing a stronger moral ground?

We can see why by examining what the decision may have looked like to Cadbury and other chocolate firms. From the perspective of a chocolate firm: if some other firms chose to boycott, one firm stood to gain huge profits by continuing to buy slave cocoa, as they could undercut prices and gain a greater share of the market (granted, they would lose moral standing, but this would only occur if a large enough proportion of other firms boycotted). This financially benefit would be greater than the small benefit of being morally in the right if all firms boycotted together. If no firms boycotted, likely nothing would change. But if a firm boycotted while any other firms did not, then that firm would lose sales to the firms that continued to buy slave cocoa, endangering the firm’s survivability and potentially rendering its own employees jobless.

These conditions fit the criteria of a Prisoner’s Dilemma (though to be precise, since there are multiple players, this is an NPD, n-person prisoner’s dilemma), for which the optimal strategy (in a single game) is to defect (D), as regardless of what the other player does, the better choice is to defect.

To the credit of cooperation (C), it is true that in repeated games of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, strategies that employ cooperation can begin to outperform always defecting (Nowak 91). However, the situation at hand isn’t exactly a repeated game. For context, Britain at the time was a big proponent of free trade capitalism, having one of the most permissive commercial laws in Europe (Booth 590). So there would certainly be no help from the government in bailing out a chocolate company if it opted for the boycott and consequently went out of business (and why would they? We just saw the British government’s own role in supporting slave labor). Going out of business certainly puts an end to the game for that company.

In this frame, Cadbury’s period of inaction can be seen as somewhat defensible. In fact, even after Cadbury, Fry, and Rowntree jointly agreed to boycott in 1909, American chocolate manufacturers began to purchase the Portuguese slave-labor cocoa (Higgs 150). The market conditions of the time simply conflated doing moral good with shooting oneself in the foot.

In summary, Cadbury’s moral facade belies a history of entanglement in early 20th century slave labor, though the blame lies not only on Cadbury and the other chocolate firms of the time alone, but also on the British and Portuguese governments and the market consequences of taking action at the time.

Works Cited

Author of this blog post. “A Payoff Matrix for Cadbury’s Decision to Boycott Slave Cocoa in early 1900s”. 24 Mar 2020.

Booth, A. (2012). Personal Capitalism and Corporate Governance: British Manufacturing in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Twentieth Century British History, 23(4), 590-592.

Bosspostcard. “São Tomé e Princípe – Serviçais Caboverdianos Carregando Cacau Na Roça Nova Cuba – Ethnique – Ethnic – Costumes – Mœurs “: For Sale on Delcampe.’” Delcampe, 17 Mar. 2015, 11:40, http://www.delcampe.net/en_GB/collectables/postcards/sao-tome-and-principe/sao-tome-e-principe-servicais-caboverdianos-carregando-cacau-na-roca-nova-cuba-ethnique-ethnic-costumes-moeurs-305514274.html.

Cadbury. “Cadbury – Mum’s Birthday TV Advert – 2018 (60 secs).” YouTube, 12 Jan 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0eEqeizNCA.

Higgs, Catherine. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Ohio University Press, 2013.

Nowak, M. A. Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.

Satre, Lowell Joseph. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business. Ohio Univ. Press, 2006.

Statista Research Department. “Global Market Share of the Leading 5 Chocolate Producers in 2011.” Statista, Statista Research Department, 15 May 2012, http://www.statista.com/statistics/238294/market-share-of-the-leading-5-chocolate-producers-worldwide/.

The Luxury Chocolate Tasting of R-Dizzle Rich

Purpose of the Tasting

The purpose of my chocolate tasting was to see whether the attendees could discern between the four various categories for the sourcing and materialization of chocolate as discussed in class and the readings: (1) Direct Trade, (2) Fair Trade, (3) Organic, and (4) Industrialized. Because much of Chocolate class was about the social, anthropological, and economic impacts of and differences between each of these chocolate types, I thought this would be an excellent theme to my tasting that brings historical, socioeconomic, and taste-related views.

Figure 1. The fancy invitations I used to invite 7 participants to my tasting.

Figure 2. The participants of my chocolate tasting.

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Types of Chocolate in the Tasting

(1) Direct Trade There are four general types of chocolate (based on its production processes) that we have learned in Chocolate class. The first is Direct Trade, also known as bean-to-bar chocolate, as these companies have control of its manufacturing process from growing and harvesting of the cacao bean all the way to its packaging and selling into a bar. Direct Trade chocolate is usually a chocolate company that directly deals with farmers. There’s a bit of variation in its manufacturing processes, but this leaves more room for negotiation from the different chocolate companies. Direct Trade companies may place environmental and labor factors into consideration, but not to as far of an extent as other chocolate types such as Fair Trade. In Direct Trade, there is less regulation because it is assumed that there is maximum control between the cacao harvesters, manufacturers, and packagers of the chocolate product. However, the very direct control of these Direct Trade chocolate companies costs a high premium, making their products quite expensive. Because of the rarity of a chocolate company having complete control of an entire chocolate farm, which is usually located outside of the U.S., solely for their company, the quantity of Direct Trade producers which exists is very low.

(2) Fair Trade The second category of chocolates presented was the Fair Trade chocolate type. These mass-produced confections are intended to guarantee a consistent smell and taste, achieved through rigorous oversight and a careful blending of cacao. According to Michael D’Antonio of Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams, using liquid condensed milk instead of the powdered milk that the Swiss favored, Schmalbach’s mixture was easier to move through various processes: “…it could be pumped, channeled, and poured — and it required less time for smoothing and grinding. Hershey would be able to make milk chocolate faster, and therefore cheaper, than the Europeans” (D’Antonio 2006: 108). With techniques like these that were melded again and again by Hershey a century ago, efficiency of methods for the mass-production and -distribution of chocolate was possible. However, these efficient industrialized methods definitely compromise the ethics of labor, environmentalism, and health-focuses of these chocolates.

(3) Organic The third type of chocolate that is explored in this tasting is Organic chocolate. Organic chocolates place an emphasis on health and the environment. They do not use pesticides, and because it places such a large, conscious emphasis on these issues, there is a loss of yield that occurs in terms of its production and consumption. These chocolate products also tend to be extremely expensive, for there is usually a rearrangement premium placed on their price tag. Additionally, although organic chocolate products focus on health-related and environmental issues, there is no standard for the laborers of its production. Organic chocolate products must also all undergo certification, and usually the bars themselves are sold in small proportions.

(4) Industrialized The final category of chocolates which were presented during the tasting was Industrialized chocolate. Fair Trade chocolates emphasize the moral ethics of the chocolate production. They prioritize producing ethical, labor-regulated goods, and for this reason they also weigh between ingredient and product. These products also require a certification by one or more of the various Fair Trade certification companies. These groups usually require a type of price threshold, which makes this type of chocolate a little bit more expensive. Fair Trade chocolates also take the environment into account, although oftentimes not as much as Organic chocolates do. Fair Trade chocolates also focus on community development.

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Advertising

Figure 3. The advertising and packaging used for each of the four chocolates used in my tasting.

(1) Direct Trade:

Taza Chocolate, Seriously Dark, 87% Cacao, Organic Dark Chocolate

Observations of Packaging:

• Girly
• Bright colors
• Easy-to-read font that pops out

(2) Fair Trade:

Seattle Chocolate, Pike Place Espresso, Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar with Decaf Espresso

Observations of Packaging:

• “Adult-like”
• “Rainy coffeehouse hipster”
• Elegant
• Cloudy color scheme (not as bright)

(3) Organic:

Lake Champlain Chocolates, Cacao Nibs & Dark Chocolate, 80% Cocoa

Observations of Packaging:

• Simple
• “Typical coffee colors”
• Compromise between adult- and kid-themed packaging (could theoretically work for either audience)

(4) Industrialized:

Cadbury, Royal Dark, Dark Chocolate

Observations of Packaging:

• Shiny
• “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”
• Regal, luxurious

 

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Works Cited

“Here There Will Be No Unhappiness.” Hershey Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams, by Michael D D’Antonio, Simon & Schuster, 2006, pp. 106–126.

 

 

The Impact of Cacao Purchasing Practices: Cadbury vs. Taza

The definition of chocolate in the Oxford dictionary is, “a food in the form of a paste or solid block made from roasted and ground cacao seeds, typically sweetened and eaten as confectionary,” (Oxford 2019). This definition is very broad and it includes many different varieties and flavors of chocolate. The taste of a chocolate bar may be attributed to many factors, including the type of cacao used, the processing of the cacao, and the ingredients in the chocolate bar. We will explore the production process of Cadbury and Taza chocolate. While both Taza and Cadbury products fall under the definition of chocolate, they are made from very different cacao under distinct production processes. We can examine these elements to explain their differences in taste. Additionally, by analyzing the growing and purchasing practices of these two companies, we can look at their impact on the farmers and farming communities.

The Cadbury company, founded in 1824, receives the majority of its cacao from Ghana in West Africa (“Our Story” 2019). The cacao beans come from many small cacao farms in Ghana (“Cocoa Growing Countries” 2019). Each farm ferments and dries the beans and then they bring the cacao beans to large drying stations where workers combine the beans from many farms, weigh them and pack them into sacks. Merchants then send the cacao sacks to the Ghana Cocoa Board. From here, the Ghana Cocoa Board takes the sacks to a port where the Cadbury company selects and purchases their beans and then ships the beans to processing factories (one in Singapore and another in Chirk, North Wales (“Chocolate Making” 2019; “Fact Sheet: Chocolate Manufacturing,” n.d.). At these factories, workers separate the cacao into cocoa powder and cocoa butter using a hydraulic press. Other workers then send the cocoa powder and the cocoa butter to Cadbury factories in Australia and New Zealand for chocolate production (“Chocolate Making” 2019). Here, workers add condensed cream and sugar to the cocoa to create a “cocoa crumb” that they mix with chocolate liquor and cocoa butter and a “special chocolate flavoring,” the composition of which the company does not disclose. The mixture then undergoes refining, conching, and tempering (“Chocolate Making” 2019).

Taza, a much newer, smaller chocolate company founded in 2005, has a production process that differs drastically from that of Cadbury (“About Taza” 2015). Trading directly with the farmers, Taza purchases high quality cacao beans from the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and Haiti (“Taza Direct Trade” 2015). Taza then ships the beans back to its factory in Somerville, Massachusetts and roasts and winnows the beans. They then use molinos, or traditional Mexican stone mills, to grind the cacao beans in order to preserve the flavor. This is where Taza’s “stone ground” chocolate comes from. The chocolate mass then undergoes tempering, molding, and cooling (“Our Process” 2015).

Taza receives its cacao directly from farms in South America and islands in the Caribbean. Cadbury receives its cacao from the Ghana Cocoa Board in Ghana in West Africa.

To emphasize, one of the major differences between Cadbury’s and Taza’s purchasing practices is that Cadbury purchases cacao in bulk from the Ghana Cocoa Board whereas Taza purchases cacao directly from the farmers. Cadbury previously received Fairtrade certification for following regulations for free and fair labor practices in the trade of ethical goods. However, Cadbury now follows free trade practices (“Cocoa Life” 2019; Leissle 2018). Free trade is a business model whereby companies purchase the cacao at market price, which is the lowest price for purchasing cacao. The cacao is likely not high quality. The Ghana Cocoa Board has instituted measures for quality control, including giving farmers training in agriculture and spraying to control for pests and diseases. The Cocoa Board also performs quality tests and bean classifications (Leissle 2018). Yet, the cacao comes from numerous farms and it is combined in bulk. Therefore, the purchaser does not know exactly what farms in Ghana or the types of cacao pods that the cacao beans come from. Additionally, since the farmers and farm workers do not know exactly what chocolate company will be purchasing their cacao, they do not have a direct relationship with the company and therefore, they may not have incentives to produce a high quality of cacao bean, rather they are more concerned with producing a large quantity of cacao beans. The majority of cacao farmers are involved in free trade because most of the big chocolate companies use the free trade business model to achieve the lowest possible price for the cacao. In purchasing cacao at market price, these companies can afford to sell their final chocolate products at a cheap price for chocolate consumers (Leissle 2018). Thus, consumers from all classes can afford to purchase Cadbury’s chocolate products, which will continue to increase Cadbury’s revenue (Albritton 2013). As a result of this free trade system, the farmers receive lower wages. In Ghana, the Ghana Cocoa Board pays the farmers and takes out taxes, which can be a large percentage. Additionally, the farmers’ payment may have further deductions depending upon farm labor and environmental certifications (Leissle 2018).

At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, Cadbury had issues with slavery in cacao farming on the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, its main suppliers of cacao at the time. Through various investigations and after several years, the Cadbury company decided to boycott the cacao grown in Sao Tome and Principe in an attempt to rectify the situation. After the start of the boycott, Cadbury began purchasing cacao from other countries in West Africa (Higgs 2012; Satre 2005). In a large company where there are many exchanges and intermediaries involved from the cacao bean to the final chocolate product, it can be difficult to monitor labor practices in third-world cacao growing regions, especially under the free trade business model. As previously mentioned, Cadbury’s cacao comes from the Ghana Cocoa Board. Thus, the Cadbury company is not aware of exactly what cacao farms the cacao comes from and Cadbury cannot easily monitor the labor practices on these farms. Nevertheless, Cadbury has launched a new initiative to partake in the Cocoa Life program (“Cocoa Life” 2019). This program is centered on educating cacao farmers and farming communities with the goals of lifting them out of poverty and giving them life skills in order to allow farmers to benefit from and participate more in the cocoa supply chain (“Cocoa Life – About the Program” 2019).  Currently, in the cacao farming world, large companies in first world countries control the supply chain while farmers in third world countries live in poverty (Leissle 2018). Many feel that it is imperative for farmers to be educated and play a larger role in the cacao supply chain such that they can earn better and fair wages to support their farms and, in turn, pay their workers fair wages (Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute 2019).

Taza, on the other hand, practices direct trade. The company created the Taza Direct Trade Program for the chocolate industry to promote transparency and quality (“Taza Direct Trade” 2015). In fact, Leissle refers to Taza as the “direct trade pioneer for chocolate,” (Leissle 2018). Direct trade involves a firsthand relationship between the purchaser (Taza) and the farmers (Leissle 2018). As such, Taza pays the farmers 15 percent to 20 percent above the market price for this high quality cacao. This ends up to be at least $500 above market price per metric ton of cacao (“2018 Transparency Report” 2018). Therefore, the final chocolate product is more expensive for consumers. This is due to the fact that the company (Taza) pays the farmers a higher price for the cacao to ensure that the cacao is high quality (Leissle 2018).

Taza’s direct relationship with cacao farmers, whom Taza refers to as its “grower partners,” plays a large role in the company’s ability to monitor the labor practices of the cacao farms (“Taza Direct Trade” 2015). In contrast to Cadbury, Taza has no intermediaries or middlemen in the cacao purchasing process. Therefore, with the direct contact, purchasers from Taza can monitor the growing conditions and labor practices on the farm to ensure that they are non-abusive and environmentally sound (“Taza Direct Trade” 2015). Furthermore, Taza publishes an annual transparency report that contains the price they paid for cacao among other statistics about the farmers and the farms.

Taza’s direct relationships with its growing partners fosters a better labor environment for the workers. Not only does Taza benefit from high quality cacao, but Taza has a positive impact on the community in Haiti by producing stability and giving workers a sense of ownership in the cacao and a critical piece of the supply chain. This video produced by Taza describes Taza’s relationship with growers in Haiti
(“Sourcing for Impact in Haiti” 2015).

One of the trademarks of direct trade is that the farmers have a direct relationship with the chocolate companies without the involvement of middlemen. On the other hand, in larger, free trade supply chains, there can be many middlemen involved in the cacao purchasing as shown in Cadbury’s purchasing process
(“Chocolate Making” 2019).

While both the direct trade and the free trade models have little third party regulation, the direct trade model can provide more transparency since it is less complicated with fewer middlemen involved in the cacao purchasing process. Additionally, since Taza pays higher prices for the cacao, the farmers earn higher wages. This leads to the prevention and mitigation, and even eradication of, unfair or forced labor on these farms. On the other hand, through the free trade model of paying market price for the cacao, the farmers earn much lower wages. This can be conducive to exploitative or forced labor environments since the farm owners may not be able to afford to pay their workers fair wages.

In addition to the effect of cacao purchasing practices on labor conditions, cacao purchasing practices affect the taste of the final chocolate product. This is due to the fact that Cadbury purchases lower quality cacao at market price in bulk from the Ghana Cocoa Board whereas Taza purchases higher quality cacao at a higher price via direct trade practices (“Taza Direct Trade” 2015; “Cocoa Growing Countries” 2019). This difference in cacao quality leads to different chocolate production practices. Since the cacao is low quality, Cadbury, like other large chocolate companies, hides the flavor of the cacao in the final chocolate product via various processing steps such as adding their “special chocolate flavoring,” which includes sugar and condensed milk (“Chocolate Making” 2019; “Fact Sheet: Chocolate Manufacturing,” n.d.). On the contrary, Taza’s production process preserves the flavor of the high quality cacao such that it is detectable in the chocolate.

In order to gain some more knowledge about the differences in taste between Cadbury and Taza chocolate, I had some friends do a tasting of the two. They each tasted a square of the Cadbury Royal Dark Chocolate bar and the Taza Chocolate Mexicano 70% Dark Cacao Puro stone ground disk. The only ingredients in the Taza chocolate are organic cacao beans and organic cane sugar. In the Cadbury bar, the ingredients are sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, milk fat, natural and artificial flavor, soy lecithin, and milk. Looking at the ingredients of the two chocolates, some of the major differences are that there are no additives aside from organic sugar in the Taza disk whereas there are several ingredients besides cocoa in the Cadbury bar. Some major contrasts between the descriptors for the two types of chocolate were that the Cadbury chocolate was smooth, silky, and sweet, whereas the Taza chocolate was gritty, bitter, and not as sweet. These differences demonstrate the fact that Taza’s processing methods bring out the taste of the cacao for the consumer whereas Cadbury’s processing methods create a uniform flavor where the other ingredients mask the cacao.

Ingredient labels for Taza Cacao Puro and Cadbury Royal Dark Chocolate. The only ingredients in the Taza chocolate are organic cacao beans and organic cane sugar. Thus, many people can taste the flavor of the cacao. The Cadbury chocolate contains many other ingredients that mask the flavor of the cacao.

In all, chocolate takes on many different forms depending on the type of cacao processing and production methods. Direct trade cacao purchasing creates a firsthand relationship between the company and the farmers. By excluding middlemen from the process, the direct trade purchasing is less convoluted than free trade, making it easier to monitor labor practices and ensure fair labor practices. This is not to say that all free trade chocolate involves child labor or unfair labor, but that labor practices are more difficult to monitor when there are more parties involved in the purchasing.  In addition to the labor aspects of direct trade versus free trade, a byproduct of direct trade is that Taza is able to create a unique flavor from the high quality cacao beans rather than concealing the flavor of the cacao using other ingredients as in a Cadbury chocolate bar.

Bibliography

“2018 Transparency Report.” 2018. Taza Chocolate. 2018.
https://www.tazachocolate.com/pages/2018-transparency-report.

“About Taza.” 2015. Taza Chocolate. 2015. https://www.tazachocolate.com/pages/about-
taza.

Albritton, Robert. 2013. “Between Obesity and Hunger: The Capitalist Food Industry.” In
Food and Culture, edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. Taylor & Francis.

“Chocolate Making.” 2019. Cadbury. 2019. https://www.cadbury.com.au/about-
chocolate/chocolate-making.aspx.

“Cocoa Growing Countries.” 2019. Cadbury. 2019. https://www.cadbury.com.au/About-
Chocolate/Cocoa-Growing-Countries.aspx.

“Cocoa Life.” 2019. 2019. http://www.cadbury.co.uk/cocoa-life.

“Cocoa Life – About the Program.” 2019. Cocoa Life. 2019. http://www.cocoalife.org/the-
program/approach.

“Fact Sheet: Chocolate Manufacturing.” n.d. https://www.cadburyworld.co.uk/schoolandgroups/~/media/cadburyworld/en/files/pdf/fa
ctsheet-chocolate-manufacture.

Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute. 2019. Examining Brazil’s Cocoa-Chocolate Supply Chain:
Film Screening and Discussion, Part 2. Harvard University.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H6088tpE8c.

Higgs, Catherine. 2012. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Athens: Ohio
University Press.

Leissle, Kristy. 2018. Cocoa. Newark: Polity Press.

“Our Process.” 2015. Taza Chocolate. 2015. https://www.tazachocolate.com/pages/our-
process.

“Our Story.” 2019. Cadbury. 2019. http://www.cadbury.co.uk/our-story.

Oxford. 2019. “Chocolate.” Oxford Dictionaries | English. 2019.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/chocolate.

Satre, Lowell J. 2005. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business. Athens:
Ohio University Press.

“Sourcing for Impact in Haiti.” 2015. Vimeo. 2015. https://vimeo.com/141051869.

“Taza Direct Trade.” 2015. Taza Chocolate. 2015.
https://www.tazachocolate.com/pages/taza-direct-trade.

Cadbury Chocolate Debate: Resolving Moral and Economic Contradictions

In 1901, the Cadbury company, which employed workers in Britain to make chocolate, started becoming aware of a brewing ethical crisis. Though the company prided itself on caring for its employees with Quaker hospitality, they now learned that São Tomé and Príncipé, African islands in the Portuguese Empire, were potentially using a form of labor that was effectively slavery on the cocoa farms. The drama primarily unfolded amidst the clash between the harsh reality of economic self-interest and a universal liberal moral consensus of antislavery. Ultimately, the work of investigative journalists made it untenable for Cadbury and other stakeholders to continue to triangulate between the two contradictory forces, and the forces of liberal consensus proved to be more powerful for Cadbury.

To understand how Cadbury ended up in this quagmire, it is helpful to understand that the company’s identity held contradictory elements from its beginning. The company insisted that its mission was not solely to make money, but to also model a morally superior Quaker society. Religious discrimination prevented Quakers from many areas of social and political power, but the Quakers provided support for each other, and many were able to succeed in business (Satre 14). The Cadbury family was highly involved in charity work, and aimed to build the rural village of Bournville (also the name of the factory) into a model city as part of the “Garden City movement, designed to improve the living conditions of its people” (Satre 16).

Still, even before the Cadbury debate, there were hints that this best of both worlds narrative, which portrayed the company as both morally and economically superior, was covering over disheartening contradictions. Specifically, the company often would choose money over morals. The company operated under a “marriage bar,” which forced female employees to leave upon becoming married. Cadbury justified it by explaining that “Cadbury did not want to take mothers away from their homes and children” (Newkey-Burden). Yet Cadbury employed large numbers of single women to keep expenses down, and had to separate the sexes in the factory to protect the single women. Further, many Cadbury workers could not afford the rents in Cadbury’s model village (Satre 16). These factors raise fair suspicious that Cadbury’s actions were sometimes motivated more by economic factors (i.e. young, single women could be paid less) rather than by their proclaimed moral intentions (i.e. promoting motherhood).

As the scandal burst onto the public awareness after journalist Henry Nevinson’s articles (Satre 82), Cadbury’s reputation was in a particularly vulnerable position. Its predicament was summed up well by a journal’s wry observation that “the cocao and chocolate which are turned out in this country by philanthropic manufacturers with the most scrupulous of care for the welfare of their employees, should have been grown under the most infamous and revolting conditions of murderous slavery” (Satre 83). This contrast can be displayed through a 1960 BBC video clip of Bessbrook model village (link, BBC) with images from slave condition. Bessbrook served as inspiration for Bournville, and the BBC reporter notes its “quiet dignity,” and remarks that the park and childrens playgrounds are “well-kept and free from litter”. As a goose gracefully swims in lake, the reporter nostalgically describes the bygone era in which the Quaker companies “were concerned with the social welfare of their workers.” Even after scandals of São Tomé and Príncipé, the benevolent image continued to hold its place in the public’s mind, as evidenced by the wistful mood of the video.

In contrast, Nevinson’s image (link, Nevinson) of the slaves being transported by ship encapsulates the complete disempowerment of the slaves. While the BBC video extols the parks and playgrounds, the mass of woman and their children are crowded lifelessly on the deck, with no space to leisurely roam about even if they wanted to. Only a few of the women in the picture have the energy to sit up, and of those, many appear to avert the gaze of the camera, perhaps in shame. The two women who do make eye contact appear mournfully resigned to their predicament.

The advertisement for Cadbury provides another contrasting example. Two woman happily look down at the expansive, well-manicured soccer field that the children are playing on (link, Wilson). The field is surrounded by impressive architecture of Cadbury, perhaps signifying the benevolently paternalistic ethos of Cadbury. The women appear pleased to be contributing members of the model society, and their lively children on the soccer field contrast sharply with the hapless children resting in the laps of the women slaves.

Not only was slavery against the proclaimed morals of the Quaker’s, but the major players in the debate were united, at least ostensibly, in a liberal moral consensus of antislavery. Slavery had already been officially banned in both the British and Portuguese empires, so the debate was not over a moral dispute about slavery, but over a dispute of fact (Satre 2). Portugal claimed that the native laborers were voluntarily entering five year labor contracts, but Nevinson brought forth evidence the Portuguese system of “contract labor” was effectively the same as slavery (Satre 7).

Portugal’s insistence on its own propriety had a practical effect of constraining its ability to reign in threats such as Nevinson. Even though the “slave traders were aware of Nevinson’s presence and purpose” (Satre 5), he was allowed to proceed in peace (except for a poisoning incident which was possibly intentional). Instead of actively confronting Nevinson, slave traders avoided Nevinson by taking alternative paths, camouflaging the slaves as carriers, and taking other steps to disguise their practices (Satre 5). Since the Portuguese insisted they had nothing to hide, they even promoted visits to a “‘model’ plantation in São Tomé, ‘a show-place for the intelligent foreigner or for the Portuguese shareholder who feels qualms as he banks his dividends” (Satre 10). Nevinson was not impressed with the “model” plantation, especially when the doctor admitted a twelve to fourteen percent annual death rate, with the chief cause being “‘anaemia’ brought on by ‘unhappiness’” (Satre 10).

When Cadbury company decided to send William Burtt as a representative to investigate the allegations of slavery, the Portuguese not only tolerated Burtt, but actually consistently displayed hospitality to him (Higgs 141). As Cadbury negotiated with the Portuguese over reforms to the labor system, the Portuguese emphasized that they shared the company’s “‘liberal and humane sentiment’”(Higgs 141). While the Portuguese might have secretly wished to forcefully end the investigations from Nevinson and Burtt, their options were limited by their official stance of antislavery.

Cadbury was rightfully fearful of the consequences of the public outrage generated by journalists such as Nevinson. It was a “public relations nightmare” for the firm, with consumers mailing Cadbury with comments such as “You pious Frauds” (Higgs 153). The public image fallout even impacted the members of a jury, in which they ruled in favor of Cadbury’s libel lawsuit against a critical article, but only rewarded one farthing (one quarter of a penny) in damages, strongly implying their lack of sympathy for the company (Higgs 152). While a cynical interpretation is that companies and countries only act in their own self-interest, journalists such as Nevinson demonstrate that when journalists are allowed to do their jobs, the public has a chance to demand changes to the status quo.

Works Cited

Satre, Lowell. 2005. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business.

Higgs, Catherine. 2012. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa

Wilson, An. 2010. How the Cadbury family of the Victorian age would put today’s fat cats to shame

Nevinson, Henry. 1906. A Modern Slavery

Newkey-Burden, Chas . 2018.Who were the Cadbury Angels?

BBC Roving Reporter, 1960. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOCne_jgJlA