That’s right chocolate and cocoa lovers, even your beloved sweet confection runs the risk of being grown, processed, packaged unethically.  As a wary and conscientious consumer you must make the conscious choice to keep an eye out on what is going into the products that you buy as well as how they are brought to the shelves from which you pull them. There are various social and economic problems within the global chocolate and cocoa industries, according to a new article published on organicconsumers.com, and you can rest assured that you are going to want to be made aware of these newly brought-to-light risks and hindrances before you buy that next bar of chocolate or bag of baking cocoa.
The article states that within the global supply chain of chocolate and cocoa manufacturers, growers and so forth, “workers on cocoa farms are sometimes subject to unacceptable forms of exploitation; including debt bondage, trafficking and the worst forms of child labor, and that the standard models for trade and cocoa pricing have left cocoa farmers impoverished and economically vulnerable year after year.” This is precisely the sort of action that must be stopped. Make sure that you do what you can to alleviate the strain and the abuses put on these growers and workers, by becoming more aware of the products you purchase.