The Dark Side of Chocolate

Remember how we all used to eat a lot of chocolate? Then one guy pointed out how the cocoa plantations were using child labour and so hardly any chocolate was produced any more? No?

Well, that's what the documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate should have achieved. Chocolate manufacturers claim there is no child trafficking and child labour at cocoa plantations. The big exporters in the Ivory Coast claim there is no child trafficking or child labour. Meanwhile, this documentary, with hardly any real effort, shows that there is both blatant child trafficking and child labour used in plantations. And of course there was the expected reaction.

Yep, nothing.

This was in 2010, when the documentary came out, and what changes have we seen? Cadbury seems to have stopped using places, but that was in 2009, and who knows if that's really still true... hell, there was more ruckus made when they changed ingredients and lost people due to taste, not due to where or how the ingredients were produced! And Nestle is, basically, getting around to looking into it. What? Whittaker's don't look to be that much better.

What's the bet the next documentary will show that Fair Trade isn't either of those things?

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