From Bean to Bar: Cacao to Chocolate

In celebration of July 7th, World Chocolate Day, Jorden and Kimberly consider all things chocolate. What should be a sustainable contribution to the planet’s welfare instead exploits the environment and producers. To combat labor issues and promote sustainability, the Harkin-Engel Protocol aimed to address this complex and often troubling system of cacao and chocolate production. Despite the challenges, there's hope for positive change through better sourcing practices and conscious consumption.

Key Topics Jorden and Kimberly discuss include:

• What information should appear on a candy bar wrapper, but doesn’t

• How two US Congressmen pushed to end child slave labor in the cacao industry

• Why farmers earn only a fraction of the profits from chocolate

• How the same volatile market for farmers earns corporations billions a year

• How a bafflingly huge percentage of wasted cacao pods can be upcycled

• Just how many other food crops can be grown with cacao trees

• Who grows the most cacao and who’s closing in quickly

• Why cacao production should be more sustainable than it is

Recommended Resources

• Chocolate manufacturers’ Score Card, ranking corporations’ sustainability and a summary article

• The futures market on chocolate

• Country producer rankings

• The International Cocoa Organization’s farming review and development projects

• The World Cocoa Foundation

• Cocoa sustainability report, 2022

• Cocoa growing and production alternatives, along with full sun cultivation developments

• Upcycling cacao pods to reduce waste and increase farmer earnings

• Chocolate consumption and trends

  The Future of Cacao Farming

• Kimberly’s Substack ⁠newsletter post⁠

The start of something delectable

Episode Transcript

KIMBERLY

Welcome to this episode of Sustainable Planet. I'm political scientist Kimberly Weir and my co -host is Jordan Dye, a guy who knows an awful lot about sustainability issues.

JORDEN

Hey, it's great to be here with you today, Kimberly. I think it's fair to say that for most people, there's an emotional connection with chocolate from holiday memories, romance and heartbreak, or as a favorite comfort food. But behind that sweet wrapper is a story that's anything but simple. Today on Sustainable Planet, we're unwrapping the complicated truth behind cacao production, where it comes from, who grows it, and why something so small has such a big global footprint. This is the first in our two -part series on the sustainability of chocolate, and we're doing it in honor of World Chocolate Day on July 7th. Yeah,

KIMBERLY

World Chocolate Day.

JORDEN

So, Kimberly, you know how every chocolate bar wrapper is packed with numbers, calories, fat, sugar, all the things that tell us how it'll impact our bodies. Well, if you could add just one sustainability metric to the back of the wrapper, something that tells us how it impacts the planet, what would it be?

KIMBERLY

This is really interesting. I think it's a good question, too, because you can actually go about this in a few ways. And I think, one, the one that would draw the most attention would be to list statistics for child and adult slave labor. Like, no question. And that's exactly what the U .S. threatened to do to the big candy producers. if they failed to back the Harkin -Engle protocol in 2001, that they actually saw it. So this protocol sought to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. And that was what they threatened to do if companies didn't sign on to this. But I think that actually it would be great if companies who, I mean, it would actually work for companies who ethically source their beans because then they could put a big giant zero and like bold face, right? And say, hey, you know, like. But I think the one statistic that would really get to the heart of the matter would be to list that 68 % of cocoa is wasted by not using the whole pod and that that packs much less of a punch. But it would actually help to eliminate worse forms of child labor and adult slave labor because if farmers were paid for the whole pod instead of just because it's a really labor intensive. I've visited. cacao farms and it's a labor intensive process because besides the growing and the harvesting everything right they harvest after that they have to split the pods they have to separate out the beans they have to well sorry first they have to ferment the pods under cover them all in bananas right banana I'm thinking the process here yes they have to be fermented first and then they sorry either they split them or they ferment them first as whole pods I forget which It's been a while, but then they have to separate them out, separate out the beans. They have to put them on drying tables and then they have to keep turning them for a few days in the sun. They have to hope that the weather cooperates with them and that the conditions aren't too humid, too much humidity in the air because that can make them go off. Then they have to package them up and send them off. And so they have like this huge process before they even get to the point where they can ship them off to be sold. If companies would buy whole pods, that would eliminate all of those steps in the labor process. And so there would be far less demand for labor. And so because of that, then they could really eliminate a lot of the worst forms of child labor and adult slave labor in the process. But of course, that doesn't pack nearly, you know, like the, you know, like the eye -opening number that, hey, you know, 57 children and adults were. were harmed in the making of this chocolate bar.

JORDEN

I mean, I think that would resonate with people, though, seeing that on there. And I think this is a really important point you just made, because a lot of times we're talking about labor impacts. We always want to see more jobs, right? And that's generally the drive. But in cases like the like the chocolate industry where there's still so much slave labor that is put in it, we're not actually paying the price of labor in that good. So when you're talking about steps that could remove those those jobs, they're not it's not jobs. I think that's the big distinction, right? Like they're not being paid for this. And shifting to I think because I think some of the other methods we'll talk about today is if you're not going to take the labor out of it, getting more of the money into that part of the of the chocolate production system so you can have more better paying jobs and this is more sustainable. I have a couple. I wanted to start out talking a little bit about the size of the chocolate industry because I have got some some stats today that I think you're going to enjoy because, you know, I did use the famous elephant scale. So I want to know, like, how much are we talking about per year? Right. And it's about four point seven. I saw ranges estimating from four point seven million tons of cocoa each year up to six million tons of cocoa. I went with the 4 .7 million and I translated this into elephants. It's actually equal to double the weight of the entire global elephant population. You need 940 ,000 elephants to equal the amount of cocoa we produce. And the big thing here is that's not chocolate. That's just that upstream. When you look at chocolate. It is kind of amazing. We are producing. Oh, I got to find the set here, but it's equal to the size of the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt. That is the amount of chocolate we produce each year.

KIMBERLY

And I probably eat about 12 blocks worth of that pyramid myself.

JORDEN

Oh, well, you do know that America is the largest consumer of like largest single country consumer of chocolate in the world at about 17 percent of the global chocolate. Per capita,

KIMBERLY

Per capita, though, it's definitely the Danish and the Swiss, the Swiss and the Danish. I forget which one is which, but they're both like like pounds of chocolate a year. And having been, oh, my gosh, like to die for. So understandably so.

JORDEN

I was going to give America a little credit there and say you're not the highest per capita. But I noticed how quick you were to point out that we're not the highest.

KIMBERLY

Well, we eat the crap stuff here. That's the problem. That's the difference is the Swiss have a very refined palate when it comes to chocolate. And it was interesting, too, because I was recently in Switzerland and I was asking in the shops about, you know, was it fair trade, ethically sourced? And because they didn't have signs up in some of them. And there's absolutely, it was like kind of so much a given that it wasn't even publicized. Like that was just a given. Yeah. And it was really impressive because that is not the given in most places in the world when it comes to chocolate.

JORDEN

I was going to say maybe a behind the scenes sneak for listeners here. There's definitely one person on this episode who loves chocolate a lot more than the other. I have a sweet tooth, but I got to say chocolate is not the one that drives it for me. So it was actually you who told me that there was a World Chocolate Day, which did not surprise me. But interesting that it was in July. When I think of chocolate, though, in the kind of the environmental issues, I do think about the deforestation. And you combine that with the kind of monocropping that's been driven by this. And I know that when we focus on chocolate, we think about like West Africa and the like just the severe amount of deforestation that's been driven by this industry in those countries. And now seeing it rise in Indonesia and the amount of land loss that's kind of going on is that that's gained ground. One of the things I found most interesting, though, is that there's. You have to be between plus and minus 10 degrees of the equator to grow this crop. And I think that really, it creates a really band kind of deforestation you're seeing driven by chocolate. And that was an interesting fact for me on this as we were preparing.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, it's largely an equatorial crop. And what's also interesting is that... It originated, many people probably know, actually in Mesoamerica. And when the Spanish went in, they completely obliterated. They were processing it so quickly, growing it so quickly and monocropping that they caused a blight and wiped it out. And that was through then colonization, how it got spread to West Africa because they had similar climate and growing conditions. And that's how it ended up spreading. So yeah, so move it there and it's great. And at the time they were doing it in such a way that it was polycropping and not just monocropping because they learned their mistake, right? They knew from the experiment, the Spaniards that when the French and the British took it to West Africa and actually also the Caribbean too, Grenada was another place where it went to along with our spaces and so forth, that monocropping was not going to be the answer. It had to be polycropped. shade grown is ideal condition for that yeah i think that that was one of the ones that i found most interesting because i think this is an easy area where monocropping is actually not better for a lot of things like i think a lot of times we see monocropping there are always downsides to it but in certain farming practices the just the output and like the the scale of it can make up for it but when i was looking into this i found one study showed

JORDEN

i think that that was one of the ones that i found most interesting because i think this is an easy area where monocropping is actually not better for a lot of things like i think a lot of times we see monocropping there are always downsides to it but in certain farming practices the just the output and like the the scale of it can make up for it but when i was looking into this i found one study showed Multiple studies have shown this, but one in particular I wanted to focus on showed that not only did the amount of cacao produced increase in shade cropping, it made the farmer more money from having more agricultural inputs, made the farmer money from having more production, but also cost less to the upstream companies because those farmers could actually grow more on the land. So you had it less spread out on your supply chain. And the big one for me was that just by including 13 to 25 shade trees per hectare, the study found 127 % increase in the amount of carbon removed. So like along all of the, we always talk about like social benefits, environmental benefits, economic benefits, going away from monocropping seems to improve across the entire chain.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. So when it comes to cacao production, it actually should be much more sustainable and carbon positive. industry or farming than it actually is. But instead, we see monocropping happening and that's caused 37 % forest decrease in Cote d 'Ivoire and 13 % in Ghana, though that's estimated to be low because it's probably closer to that of its neighbor. And that's something that I was wondering, like, to what extent is deforestation of other hardwoods actually causing the monocropping. And I couldn't really find much on that, you know, the causation between those two factors, which would explain some of that, because I know those are countries that also suffer from like ebony lost and other hardwoods that, that teak and so forth. And so they, but for people who don't love chocolate, like me know, like everything there is, I could write books, probably volumes on chocolate and cocoa and cocoa industry. But the Coupe d 'Ivoire and Ghana are the two biggest producers, like two thirds of the percent of the world's cocoa bean supply. And Indonesia has also gained significant ground. They're actually probably closing in on, if they haven't already this year, closed in on Ghana in terms of their production. And so that's a huge growth industry there. And Ghana is quite limited because it's had a long history, hundreds of years now of already being in the cocoa producing business. The thing is, and as you mentioned earlier, and we were talking about with labor, is that we see this with all the natural resources and agriculture and everything that we talk about on the show. There's a big gap between the income potential for the producers and what the manufacturers get from this. So when it comes to chocolate, the manufacturers and retailers earn 80 -90 % of every bar, as opposed to the farmers who earn only 6 -7 % of that income. And then you have the people who are in between who are the traders and the grinders. And these traders are not just like people working in the international, at the, you know, at the ports, at the international market selling this off. These are people who, because with, this is the same with. cocoa beans and as, and chocolate, sorry, I love that so much, but I'm not a coffee drinker, but coffee beans too. We'll throw those in there, right? So because a lot of these are grown on small farms and then these for, for cocoa beans, these pisteras go around and they pay to collect like, so Jordan, you're a farmer and I'll buy your beans because you don't have the means to get them to, to transport them to, to the port, to sell them internationally. And so that those people, And the grinders in between, they earn even more than the farmers do. So that's kind of like, you know, really warped scale when we look at this.

JORDEN

Well, I think it's the economic power is with the least amount of players, right? So at the manufacturing and retail side, you have the least amount of players like at a global level. And then the traders kind of down to the farmers being the most. I think one of the... One of the sad parts about this is that it's also a byproduct of being a fully commodified market, right? Because that's the actual physical trading of it. But like every other commodity on top of it, cacao beans actually have futures markets. And an entire section of that traders and grinders are actual non -physical traders who are just selling and hedging against contracts, essentially, right?

KIMBERLY

Yeah. And most of this, most, as mentioned, most farms are small scale. So like 90 % of all production, like five to 6 million farmers worldwide are involved in this process. And yet they're the ones who are getting the least amount of money. So it makes it difficult for them, even if they want to ethically produce, you know, like not use worst forms, child slave labor or adult labor. And, you know, part of that problem is, is that the Cote d 'Ivoire and Ghana are on the coast. The poorer countries that sit above them, Burkina Faso and Mali, those workers are coming down from those countries, migrating down. And for them, like, or being sold off indentured slaves, whatever it is, because they've got literally nothing. And there's such a huge demand for workers there.

JORDEN

Well, and I think this is like why for Ghana, seeing Indonesia rise up and kind of some of the issues that we're like Ghana is seeing is so concerning because about 3 .2 million people are like legally employed in the cocoa production industry in Ghana. And I want to make that. But that's 10 percent of the population of Ghana.

KIMBERLY

I think it's important. The point you made earlier is important, which is the difference between formal sector work and informal sector work, because even the people who own the farms and do the farming. they are also still in the informal sector. So they don't have job income, like regular income per se, unless they are part of a cooperative. But so these people who are employed in this industry, they're like not employed in the way that we, you know, how many people are employed in the healthcare industry sort of thing.

JORDEN

No, and this is, I was... A little bit quick, so I was trying to run a stat really quickly here looking at this. So the global chocolate industry is $140 billion per year market. Sorry, and I finally got to the point, I didn't highlight it for myself, but it's 11 billion kilograms of chocolate per year. And that's the weight of the Great Pyramid. But looking at that, like the wage breakdown or I guess the profit breakdown that you shared there, of that $140 billion, only $8 .4 billion is going to the farmers.

KIMBERLY

And that's across five to six million farmers who then have to pay other people to work for them on the farms to harvest. So that doesn't leave them a lot of money.

JORDEN

Not at all.

KIMBERLY

And so not only that, there's also a lack of labor supply. So it's very competitive in trying to get people. And so if you can just buy people, that's a lot better than paying more, the market, fair market, whatever the market will bear. And also because it's seasonal work that puts another kink in it. It makes it harder to regulate. It makes it harder to have the incentive for people. You know, what do you do with people the rest of the year round?

JORDEN

Well, and again, as we talk about often on the show, it's coordinating this across every like while it's in 70 percent. We're seeing that that kind of spread out to other regions now. And a lot of that is driven by by climate change and what we're seeing. Again, as not a chocolate lover, I think I was always on the issue. You know, chocolate is is not great. I think like everybody from an environmental perspective. But I didn't realize how much the climate change we're already experiencing is driving some of the decline in West African chocolate production and shifting it. So the stat that I found that really kind of. drove it home for me is that because that equatorial region chocolate is very finicky it's a crop that requires a very precise climate and in west africa over the last decade alone two -thirds of growing regions have seen an increase of six weeks worth of days that are hotter than cocoa plants can handle and in the worst regions it's actually eight weeks So this has led to a price surge of 136 % in the cost of chocolate between 2022 and 2024. And you've probably experienced that more than I have. Oh, I do.

KIMBERLY

Oh, I do. Yes. Yeah.

JORDEN

I think the way I've experienced it is noticing that like chocolate's getting smaller and that shrinkflation. I don't see it being that much more expensive in my daily life compared to like with the grocery inflation in general, but have definitely noticed when looking at it like that. It's one of those feelings like almost, you know, when you grab something that you have as a kid or you remember being big and now it's tiny in your hands. That's how I felt with chocolate for the last couple of years.

KIMBERLY

Well, I for me, I. My go to is endangered species brand, and it's a consistently been a three ounce bar still, but the price has absolutely gone up over the last two years because of this. And the thing is, is that because of climate change and deforestation and the need. for the demand for chocolate, right? Because of this, there's research done on full shade cultivation. And there have been developments in this to be able to move in this direction. But that's kind of a catch 22 too, because if you actually put this out there, then that might actually lead to more deforestation because you can have more full sun cultivation with the same yields.

JORDEN

Yeah. And then do we get to removing actual forestry for a polycrop, but artificial forest. Yeah.

KIMBERLY

Yeah.

JORDEN

And every industry forecast I could find only sees the demand for chocolate increasing. Oh, absolutely.

KIMBERLY

absolutely. So because there are markets that haven't even been tapped yet with the growth. I mean, OK, so in the markets that are well established, like in Europe, there's still an expectation of 9 % growth in the next 10 years. There's an expected growth in the United States as well. But the untapped markets of particularly Asia, there's been so much growth there. And in the next 10 years, the expected growth is 19 % in Asia Pacific. And it's like growing at a rate of 5 % a year almost in just Asia alone.

KIMBERLY

like growing at a rate of 5 % a year almost in just Asia alone. And so, yeah, there's a huge demand for more chocolate. And the thing is, is that... Like everything else we talk about, we're emerging economies and more people have more buying power, especially when we've talked about meat, the demand for that, or construction. These are things where the planet just cannot sustain the same level of these that we in the global north have already demanded. And so if the chocolate industry just can't keep up demand with what is expected for growth here, what's that going to do? And so we need to have some controls in here, right? So that was one of the things that the Harkin -Engle protocol was trying to institute because it wasn't just about worst forms of child labor, but it was everything then that promotes sustainability because we know that all of those things are going to be the ultimate way to route this out.

JORDEN

And that's one, I guess, you know, foreshadowing my hopefulness on this issue is it feels like... some of the pressures are aligned to move it towards a more sustainable option as we talked about i'm sorry more sustainable with like an asterisk because i think like you said if you can show if you move to shade cropping and more sustainable cocoa production does the short term is you get more out of that area so i think like that that's kind of the good news immediate impact right is that you're seeing better local production better money to the farmers and better output But with demand growing, to your point, does that lead to just taking more forest? And in this case, I'd say that it's going to be better than continuing the way it is, right? If it's going to happen either way, I would rather just see it happen in the most sustainable manner. So I think that's kind of foreshadowing where I'm going to go with my hope for today is that, you know, that pressure on increased demand, the kind of regional shift that we're seeing, those countries in West Africa aren't going to just stop producing, right? I think about it in my kind of oil producing region here in Canada of how much like an industry that employs that much can drive. So I wonder if you see like an actual governmental push to roll out some of these, because the other problem is rolling any of this out to millions of small farmers is not not an easy task.

KIMBERLY

Well, and that's what part of the what the protocol did was actually got Cote d 'Ivoire and Ghana on board with this. So it was them and the seven major chocolate producers. company producers in the world as well. And they weren't, some of them were like Barry Colobot, which most people don't know that name because they actually produce chocolate for other chocolate producers, candy bar makers and so forth. But among them like Cadbury at the time, which is since now Mondelez. Hershey was one of the worst offenders for the longest time. They've made some progress. Mars was also a terrible offender, which they've really made a huge like they're now getting stars for theirs. So that's they've done a huge turnaround.

JORDEN

some progress.

KIMBERLY

Nestle still pretty bad. So and it's not surprising you see like the ones that are like the mega corporations are the ones that are the worst offenders. These are things they can, you know, like kind of, oh, look at these amazing sustainability things, all the money we're dumping in. When you look at the amount of money that these corporations are paying in toward the protocol for monitoring and implementing laws and actually carrying out. I mean, implementing is easy. Like, OK, we're sorry. Like passing laws is easy. implementing is like, okay, we're going to do this if you're gone or the Ivory Coast. Well, then actually monitoring and enforcing, that's the hard part. And because these are small farms, that makes it even more difficult. And not even just those countries, but in Brazil, in Indonesia and other places, Ecuador. I mean, these are, I mean, Ecuador is not even like, I mean, Ivory Coast is, it's got all of its decades of civil war, which has put it behind, but it is also still. a lot of positive growth perspective there. Ghana, most certainly stable democracy since it became independent in 1960.

JORDEN

we're sorry.

KIMBERLY

Indonesia also, you know, emerging economy. But you look at Ecuador, Ecuador is like one of the poorest countries in the world.

JORDEN

Well, but even beyond that, I think like the second we get to Nestle, it's like... You know, I could do an entire episode just on that company alone. We should.

KIMBERLY

We should. And we should. I really agree.

JORDEN

agree. Because, I mean, you look at like how they've abused some of their water contracts in Canada and America, for example, and just like draining regions and then fighting any government trying to like claim back. And we're talking about contracts that are decades old now. And it's changed. So to hear that, like, no, if they're, I think, willing to do that in countries where there's a lot more attention on their activities, what are they going to do when they're going to another part of the world where we don't we don't see the same kind of light shine on it? So and not even just attention, but laws and potential legal suits and all of those other things that go along that that aren't going to be happening in Ecuador because they're they're like they I mean,

KIMBERLY

not even just attention, but laws and potential legal suits and all of those other things that go along that that aren't going to be happening in Ecuador because they're they're like they I mean, they need the income. That's the thing, too, right, is they're just absolutely reliant on these export crops. for hard international income.

JORDEN

And that's a question I want to ask you about this, the protocol, because I wasn't actually aware of this before we came into the episode. And then it seemed interesting to me that it seemed like it was more successful than a lot of international ones because it had the weight of the two producing countries. But I couldn't really, as I kind of looked into it, what pushed them? into it? Because like you just said, it's really risky to start pushing back on an industry that has this much leverage within your own country.

KIMBERLY

Well, it was because it was backed by the U .S. government. It was the one really pushing behind the Harkin -Engle protocol. They were a senator and a representative from the U .S. who were trying to push this through and draw attention to worse forms of child labor. And in the process of doing that, what they managed to do was to get those seven producing companies on board along with then saying, okay, since all of the production, so at that point, so even more, it was about three quarters of production, I think was coming out of just those two countries alone and knew that they needed to have them on board if they were going to implement this on the ground level. And so those countries, this actually worked to their benefit because it gave them some leverage then vis -a -vis the corporations who were just totally exploiting them. So that actually worked to their favor. And then also in 1973, Under the auspices of the UN, the International Cocoa Organization was founded. And so it then was also brought in on that. And there were also a number of NGOs sort of like in the background trying to, like especially the fair trade, trying to like find ways how can we work with certification and monitoring because it is usually follows to the role of the NGOs to fill in those gaps that. Either the IGOs can't or the countries certainly can't, or the corporations just are, they need that check and balance. And so the International Cocoa Organization then also helps to provide, because it's international, it's under the UN, with promoting and supporting sustainability in the industry. And they're a great source of information and pass along technology. Like there's no shortage development projects they have going on, but like a lot of international projects, they're just not, they don't have the funding that they really need. But, you know, and so this brings up the, we've talked about this a number of times too, where, well, some people will just be turned off by saying, I'm just not going to even bother to buy something that's considered ethically sourced or fair trade because the certification has been so diluted. Does it even meaningful anymore? But absolutely, without question, the bottom line is even if it's the bare bones least, you know, like like the least that the company can actually do to get certification, it's still better to buy that because there's still more accountability and more of that income is going to be going back to the producer than not.

JORDEN

Well, that's the thing is, you're if you're unless you're saying I'm not going to buy chocolate. Right. Because I think that's it's a false dichotomy because are you going to buy the chocolate? Well, then, yes. And you should put your dollars towards like where it can be done best. It also like as we talk about that, I think also sends a signal that, hey, people are interested in this like a bit more for a lot of companies. Like at the end of the day, sustainable actions are a brand exercise. And I think people have like a really negative reaction when they hear that. But you also have to understand like brand value is one of the largest like actual assets that a company has in the modern economy. And so when we say brand, it's both the good and the bad. Right. And I think that it's as much as it's sad and we might want to see it for a moral reason. It actually gives us as a consumer a lot more leverage because they've got so much value attached to these things. Well,

KIMBERLY

and for a number of years at Halloween. People were boycotting Hershey chocolate to raise attention to this issue about the protocol and child slave labor in and abuses and so forth in the industry. And I should just note, too, that since we spent a lot of time talking about it, that it's a it's a tough issue because when it comes to child slave labor, like that's clear cut, like that's just terrible. And buying and selling people is just false stuff, right? But when it comes to child labor, that's really tough because we know that Global North countries were built on kids working on farms. And with all of the research that's been done in any farming industry, for that matter, anywhere in the world, the parents oftentimes feel like the best thing they can do for the child is to actually basically make them apprentices in that industry. And not only that, but for the viability of the farm, they often need their labor too. So one thing that's really important about this protocol is that it recognizes this and says, okay, well, we know that in Ghana and the Cote d 'Ivoire that kids are going to work on these farms. And it's okay if your kids are working on these farms. But they also need to go to school. And the schools will be organized around, like it used to be in North America, like it'll be organized around harvesting time. So we recognize that. The kids will not be in school during this time. And so one of the great thing about cooperatives, which is what we're going to talk a little bit more about in part two of this episode, is that the cooperatives require kids to go to school up to grade eight. And many of them go on after that because they realize the value of that education and what can it do, even if it means them coming back to the farm. Still, what they can bring, the expertise, the marketing, whatever it is, the technology, technological capabilities that they can bring back. to improve production, that that's something that is worth that trade -off.

JORDEN

Yeah, I think it's a really important point because I actually had to go further on the farming. I don't even think it's a global north to global south dichotomy. About five years ago in my province of Alberta, there was worker safety regulations brought in for farms that would have required farmers to pay basically workers' compensation to their kids if they were working on the farm after 14. And this was a major backlash. But with all of those exact same things said, who are you to tell me my kid can't work on our farm? This is an important part of our history, our heritage, our tradition. And we shouldn't have to cover them in case they're horribly injured. So I think that there's like some some problems with that. But but it actually it's funny because I think it. strikes a larger urban kind of rule almost split that you see globally is that farming is something that's really important at a communal level to the people who are engaged in it. And I think that's one of the... I think one of the strong benefits of more sustainable farming practices is it's not about devaluing farming or moving away from like that as in saying, oh, you should just try something else or, you know what I mean, reskill. It's actually about how can this be a long term and sustainable part of your country's economy and be actually contributing in a positive way to your communities.

KIMBERLY

And yet that we talk about any natural resource or agricultural industry, they are the ones that are the bottom of the barrel. And they're the ones that need the most regulations. And they're the least number of enforceable international accords and and government policies and everything regarding them. And so, you know, like it's kind of when it comes to this, these issues, it's some ways hard for me to be hopeful. about the direction of this. Yet at the same time, I know we're better off in terms of maybe not in sheer numbers, just with population growth and especially because of COVID and various other global economy, the 2014 because of Arab Spring, the implications of that and the Euro crisis in 2011. And so because of all of those things, actually Arab Spring was 2011. just i just syria civil war started in 2014 that's why i had that number in my head that year but but yeah taking all those things into account i think that there is more awareness i see far more ethically sourced fair trade just labels on the whole but products especially chocolate and coffee coffee industry is much bigger so that's gets more attention but chocolate industry is really growing and And there are far more available varieties in mainstream markets now than there ever were before. So I think that, you know, we are sort of moving in that direction. But as you pointed out in either the last topic we talked about on degrowth or circular economy, I forget which one it was. And people should listen to both. And then you can figure out for me that you'd pointed out that. When it comes to making changes, like, you know, like for the coal industry now to say we use recycled content paper and LED light bulbs like that doesn't cut it anymore. And I think the same goes for these companies, too. So even what Nestle is doing or the worst ones, the ones that fall at the bottom of the list nowadays, that they're still doing way more than they did when the protocol was initially put into place in 2001.

JORDEN

Yeah. And then it really, I think. The other half of my theory on that is that then it's up to us to keep raising those minimum standards. Right. And I think that that's well, I'm foreshadowing. We're talking about collectives and cooperatives in the next episode, because that's what actually does give me the most hope is that we've seen models, especially from farmers before and in a history of collective power. And I think that that that's where I get really hopeful when I'm thinking about this.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, and the thing is, just I think to end this episode off, is the fact that those products, I mean, some of them are sold intentionally to people in niche markets who are willing to pay absorbent amounts that are completely not reflective of what they should. And some of them, I mean, there are bars that, depending who's making them, if it's one small place grinding their own beans from beginning to end. You know, like, of course, it's going to cost more because they're paying people in global north countries wages, fair wages with benefits and the overhead and also paying fair wages or fair prices for the cocoa that their beans that they're getting in the first place. So, of course, they're gonna be more expensive. But if you start looking large scale at the corporations that are doing this, there is no reason why the bars that I buy are not obscenely, you know, of course, they're going to cost more than. a basic Hershey bar, but they're not outrageously priced at all, or I wouldn't be able to eat my weight in chocolate every year. So that was actually going to be my kind of why I went with the hopeful is I had a unique wrap up question I wanted to throw at you,

JORDEN

that was actually going to be my kind of why I went with the hopeful is I had a unique wrap up question I wanted to throw at you, which was, can you give us some, some examples or options of chocolate that we should go and look for? Definitely.

KIMBERLY

I like dark, like 88%. And that's why I like the endangered species. I can get it in the local supermarket. I buy a lot of it.

JORDEN

And that's why

KIMBERLY

I can support that habit. But our go -to treats are ones. There's Cho. It's spelled T -C -H -O. It's out of San Francisco. Their bars are definitely more expensive, but they are super quality. They do everything. It's all sustainably sourced. And they make an interesting wide variety of flavors. Most of them are a bit sweet for me because 80 is sort of my minimum cocoa content, but I will eat some of the other ones as well because the way they do it, they don't add a lot of extra sugar. So there are plenty of brands that are widely available. Theo is also out of San Francisco. It's a theme here. Now, I was surprised. My mom bought me chocolate. We were just on vacation. My mom came back with chocolate bars. And Lint and Giardelli both actually had bean bar on them. And I was surprised because I know that's something that's been a big push. Now, Giardelli is a San Francisco also company. But Lint and some of the others that are out of Europe, they have been... legions ahead. Like Nestle is selling fair trade kick -up bars in Europe, but not in the United States. And so just for different markets, even they're still not even sourcing. And when I visited Kuapakoku in 2013, at the time, this protocol was, there was a lot of pressure on from this, with the protocol to move for these major companies to move to exclusively sourcing fair trade beans. They were using the excuse that there just wasn't a big enough supply yet at this point. But when I visited the cooperative, they said they had more than enough fair trade beans and ended up selling them off on the conventional market because they had more than what the companies were actually willing to pay for. And so I don't know. I haven't seen recent statistics and I should go back and visit Coop Coco to see to firsthand. Like they released their reports, gave me reports and stuff. I was able to look at them to verify what they were saying. run numbers and stuff for other reasons. And, and not other, I was reading at the time. And so like I was using it for the research I was doing in part for this book chapter, but, but it, you know, like this is something that I'd be really curious to be able to compare today to see if their answer is still the same. You know, we still have all of this can, you know, this, or, or also organic, because that ends up being like, if you're going to sell it, people don't care so much about ethically trade, you know, various, you know, source. But they care more about organic. So if they end up invariably sort of folding those two together. And so I'd be curious to see if they still have sort of a glut of that. Because the thing is, is that they are doing it anyway. And any place that is doing that, they're doing this anyway. And so they're not even being adequately compensated for what they're already doing and taking care of the environment. And so divine chocolate is another one absolutely people should look for. They are, in fact, out of Ghana. And that has an interesting history because it was owned. The body shop actually started the UK company. The body shop actually funded them and started them. And then when the body shop sold out, they actually gave them their shares. So they own the whole thing, which is so cool.

JORDEN

Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that stands out to me is you just hit on two of my least favorite things that you see companies do, especially in the sustainability. which is one, have the ability to do it, do it in another country selling profitably, and then not roll it out to their entire global supply chain. I think that it always just annoys me. We've talked about it with the Amazon and how they do no plastic in India, but they won't roll it out. And I think that's the same thing here. If you can have a sustainable fair trade KitKat in Europe, there's no reason that I shouldn't be able to buy one in Canada. And then the second one that it always makes me laugh, and I feel like that the second you hear from a company, oh, there's just not enough supply of it right now, it'll happen. That's the moment that it actually should just be pushed with regulation. Because if it was, to your point, no, wait, they already were oversupplied. It's just like an excuse. There's no easy option. There's no one trader who's rolled it all up that we can just go buy. And I think that's the moment when it's like, well. We actually need to put the pressure on that multinational to use their market power and their resources to complete that last step, right? But that's the problem is because the only way these companies would concede to this protocol was if it were voluntary.

KIMBERLY

But that's the problem is because the only way these companies would concede to this protocol was if it were voluntary. And that's with every protocol. It's the same with the roundtable on sustainable palm oil production. It's the same thing. Like companies said, oh, yeah, the same with the fashion industry, right? After the Corona Plaza. incident. Oh, yes, we'll do something, but only on our own terms. And so this is it. We don't have any international law with teeth that can actually enforce any of this. And that's how it's going to continue, especially with the political environment now. That's certainly not going to change anytime soon. If anything, we're moving backwards.

JORDEN

No, I. We were supposed to be ending this with like,

KIMBERLY

were supposed to be ending this with like, oh, I were hopeful. I think we've evolved back into, oh, no.

JORDEN

Well, OK, as a preview for next episode, I do think there are things to be hopeful for in the chocolate industry. So you should stay tuned for the next episode, which will air next week.

KIMBERLY

you should stay tuned for the next episode, which will air next week. So if you enjoyed our episode, this one on Sustainable Planet, or even if you didn't, let us know at splanetpod at gmail .com. We're on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. You'll find. show notes, lots of resources on splanetpod .com along with interesting write -ups about our episodes to encapsulate the points of what you might really want to know about what we did. And then that way you don't have to take notes as you listen. You can read more of my Substack post. Please rate and review our episode and have a sustainable day. Thank you for listening.