Episode 48 - Chocolate with Samantha Luc
For this episode we were joined by Samantha Luc to talk about chocolate. Samantha is a former professional chocolate eater! She used to be the Head of Traceability and Tastings and Education at Soma Chocolatemaker. Now she is working with companies across a variety of industries to support their traceability efforts with Wherefour ERP.
Here are Kristen’s research notes in preparation for this episode.
Chocolate: The Basics
The essential ingredient in chocolate is fermented and roasted seeds of the theobroma cacao tree.[1] 90% of the world’s cacao is grown by 2.5 million farmers working 5-10 acre family plots.[2]
Today, most of the farms are in Western Africa.[3] The top four cocoa producing countries are all in Western Africa: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. That is due to an increase in cocoa production in Western Africa, while chocolate production has remained stable throughout most of the world. The market share of Western African cocoa has increased from 55% to 74% since 1990. And in particular, Western Africa is a major supplier of ‘bulk cocoa’, as compared with fine or flavour cocoa. Western Africa produces more than 80% of bulk cocoa.
Once cacao beans are harvested, they are fermented, dried, roasted, crushed, and ground into cocoa powder.
History of Chocolate
Chocolate has been consumed since at least 1500 BC. It originates in Meso-America, where it was initially consumed by the Olmec, and later the Maya and the Aztec, as a drink (xocolatl, or bitter water). Chocolate was used as a currency and in rituals.
Much like sugar, chocolate was at first reserved for the elites in Europe.[4] In the mid-1800s, aided by technological innovation, chocolate started to become a product consumed by mainstream Europeans.[5]
Around that time there was also invention of the chocolate bar, which is how we mostly think about chocolate today. The first chocolate bar was made and sold by Fry and Sons in 1847 and in 1875 Henri Nestlé developed milk chocolate.
And in order to increase crop yields, cacao production shifted from the criollo variety to the forastero, which is dominant today.[6] Criollo cacao is typically seen as better tasting, but forastero cacao is easier to grow and produces a higher yield. (However, there is some dispute about this and cacao varieties can taste quite different depending on where they are grown).
People and Chocolate
Chocolate and Colonialism
Chocolate production and colonialism are inextricably connected. Chocolate was brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus. And colonialism changed the geography of chocolate production. The expansion of cacao production, especially in the 20th century largely occurred in Western Africa rather than Central and South America, where cacao trees are native.
The first large scale production of cacao in Africa began in the Portuguese plantations found on Sao Tome and Principe. Colonial governments were often responsible for coercion and dangerous working conditions on cacao plantations.
Cocoa Producers and Poverty
Since the 1980s, the average cocoa price has halved (adjusted for inflation). This is a problem because low prices push cocoa producers into situations of poverty.
In Ghana, cocoa is supply managed through a managing board called Cocobud, which buys all of the cocoa and sells it at a fixed price. Côte d’Ivoire liberalised under pressure from the IMF in the 1990s, but is now starting to re-regulate prices. Both countries have agreed to a minimum export price of $2,600/tonne, which a ‘Living Income Differential’ of $400/tonne to be used to guarantee that farmers receive about $1,800/tonne. Although this is good news, $2,600/tonne is about the same price farmers received before the cocoa price collapsed in 2016 – and back then cocoa farmers’ average incomes were below the $2.40 per day threshold for extreme poverty.
Child Labour
Child labour is endemic to cacao production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. A survey done by researchers at the University of Chicago and commissioned by the US Department of Labor, 45% of children living in agricultural households in cocoa growing areas were engaged in child labour. Child labour in cocoa has actually increased by an estimated 14% in the last decade.
Environment and Chocolate
Deforestation is a huge global issue: in 2017, for example, 40 football fields worth of tropical forest were lost every single minute. This isn’t all from chocolate, but I think it’s important to put deforestation in context.[7] About 40% of Ivorian cocoa is estimated to have come from inside protected forest areas (making it illegal).
Challenge
Kristen’s Challenge
My ethical chocolate is a Camino brand dark hot chocolate mix that I bought from my local waste-free grocery store. All of its ingredients (except sea salt) have organic certification, Fairtrade Certification or both. The cocoa is from CONACADO (the National Confederation of Dominican Cacao Producers), which is an organization of small-scale cacao producers in the Dominican Republic. The sugar is from a worker co-operative in Paraguay called Manduvirá.
Camino is a brand that’s run by an Ottawa-Gatineau-based co-operative called La Siembra. They were North America’s first importers of Fairtrade Certified cocoa and sugar. La Siembra see themselves as “100% fair-trader[s]”. They use Fairtrade Certified ingredients in all of their products, and they aim to build direct relationships with small-scale co-operative producers as much as possible. They are also supporting a new fair trade certification called SPP (the Small Producers Symbol), which is the first fair trade farmer-owned certification system and is seen as a more robust fair trade standard.
Endnotes
[1] Secret Life of Chocolate. Part 1: Origins. (6 December 2020). The Food Programme, BBC Radio Four.
[2] How Chocolate Works. (19 November 2013). Stuff You Should Know Podcast.
[3] “How Chocolate Works”, Stuff You Should Know.
[4] “Secret Life of Chocolate. Part 1: Origins”, The Food Programme.
[5] “Secret Life of Chocolate. Part 1: Origins”, The Food Programme.
[6] “Secret Life of Chocolate. Part 1: Origins”, The Food Programme.
[7] Chocolate and Sustainability. (18 November 2019). Business Wars Podcast.