How Fair Is Fairtrade Chocolate?

It’s currently Fairtrade Fortnight, a celebration of all things ethically traded, so I wanted to take a little time to explore what that little Fairtrade logo really means when you see it on a bar of chocolate.

In 1994, Green & Black’s Maya Gold was the first product in the UK to have Fairtrade certification. The Fairtrade logo signifies a product has met certain standards and that a minimum price and a premium have been paid for the ingredients.

This is incredibly important for cocoa production. There are countries where the average age of a cocoa farmer is greater than the average life expectancy, so there is a real danger that cocoa farming could simply die out. It’s vital that we invest in the future of chocolate, and that the money gets back to the people who need it the most – the farmers in some of the poorest parts of the world.

It was 2009 when Cadbury added the Fairtrade logo to their Dairy Milk bars. At the time, this was a huge step and Cadbury made a bit of a song and dance about it.

But what exactly does the Fairtrade symbol mean when you see it on a bar of Dairy Milk? Recently I noticed Cadbury had set up a Twitter account to promote their Fairtrade credentials, so I decided to ask them a fairly simple question. At least I thought it was simple:

@gonefairtrade What percentage (by weight) of a finished Cadbury Dairy Milk bar is Fair Trade?

— Chocablog (@chocablog) February 27, 2013

The response from Cadbury surprised me:

@chocablog Due to the production process we can’t give an exact number, however we do buy around 16,000 tonnes of Fairtrade cocoa each year.

— Cadbury Fairtrade (@GoneFairtrade) February 27, 2013

It’s great that Cadbury are investing so much in fairly traded cocoa, and the introduction of the Fairtrade logo on Dairy Milk certainly did a lot to raise awareness with consumers. But what’s going on here? Why can’t they give an exact number?

“Any ingredient that can be sourced on Fairtrade terms must be.”

The answer is complex, but boils down to a couple of factors. Firstly, not all the ingredients in a Fairtrade chocolate bar have to be fairly traded. Barbara Crowther, The Fairtrade Foundation’s Director Of Policy And Public Affairs tells me “The Fairtrade Label means any ingredient that can be sourced on Fairtrade terms must be.”, which includes things like sugar and vanilla.

Cadbury adds other ingredients to their Dairy Milk though. These include milk, vegetable fat, emulsifier and flavourings. The back of a Dairy Milk bar tells me that it is made with “at least 70% Fairtrade ingredients”, but that’s not the whole story.

Mass Balance

The main problem with Fairtrade chocolate is that cocoa is a commodity. It is still bought in bulk from many sources, and the beans get mixed up as they make their way through the supply chain. Fairtrade beans get mixed up with non-Fairtrade beans, and the actual source of an individual bean can get lost.

So the Fairtrade Foundation uses a ‘mass balance’ system when certifying chocolate bars. For any given chocolate bar to be certified, the manufacturer must purchase the equivalent mass of cocoa beans under Fairtrade terms. But those beans don’t have to end up in the bar being certified. Because cocoa beans are often mixed up a long time before they reach the chocolate maker, it’s quite possible that your bar of Fairtrade Dairy Milk contains no Fairtrade beans at all. Conversely, a non-certified bar of Cadbury chocolate may end up using 100% Fairtrade beans.

In effect, you’re making a charitable donation to an ethical organisation, and in exchange, the manufacturer has the right to use ingredients that aren’t themselves ethically sourced. Is this a problem? After all, aren’t Cadbury buying enough Fairtrade cocoa to make all their Dairy Milk?

While that may be true, there’s an issue with transparency. Consumers who buy Fairtrade may be a little concerned to know that there may be no Fairtrade cocoa in their certified chocolate bar at all.

Fairtrade Certified Cadbury Dairy Milk

But I also think Cadbury is gaming the system somewhat. Take a look at a bar of unflavoured Dairy Milk. Then take a look at one of the ‘sub products’ in the Dairy Milk range.

The chances are, you’ll find that bars like “Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut” or “Dairy Milk With Caramel” lack the Fairtrade logo. While it may be that there are ingredients that can’t easily be certified, it seems like Cadbury might be buying just enough Fairtrade cocoa to cover the regular Dairy Milk bar, but not the sub-brands. Consumers now associate all Dairy Milk with Fairtrade and the marketing machine does the rest.

Going Direct

Many of the issues surrounding Fairtrade chocolate revolve around how cocoa is traditionally bought and sold as a commodity. Cocoa beans generally come from smallholdings and family run farms, but can end up in anonymous, practically untraceable sacks in a warehouse.

Duffy Sheardown won The Academy Of Chocolate’s ‘Golden Bean’ award for the best bean-to-bar chocolate in the world and knows a thing or two about sourcing cocoa beans. “That’s why we started Direct Cacao.”, he told me. “To join you have to commit to farmers a premium for fine cocoa beans. That also keeps the supply chain short so farmers get the extra.”

Direct Cacao is an organisation of chocolate makers and industry professionals who have come together to source cocoa beans directly from the farmers. They not only commit to paying a premium, but the close involvement with the farmer gives them a say in how beans are treated at every stage of the chocolate making process. That means farmers have a vested interest in making sure their beans get the best possible treatment from the moment they’re harvested – and that consumers end up with a better quality, traceable bar of chocolate.

The Direct Cacao Founders

Seventy% founder Martin Christy is another Direct Cacao founding member. He goes further, saying “Few people I’ve met in the fine cacao or chocolate businesses think that Fairtrade works for chocolate. The Fairtrade premium – about $400 per tonne of cacao – is not enough to make much difference to farmers lives and there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that not much of that actually reaches the real farmers.”

“Farmers should be paid a decent amount for growing good quality cacao, not cheap bulk varieties used to make candy bars. The price for good cacao is usually way above the Fairtrade price anyway. All Fairtrade does is to take customers away from more genuine projects directly sourcing cacao at a truly fair price and makes consumers think all the problems in cacao are fixed by eating a cheap candy bar with a label that’s become more about marketing than ethics.”

“We don’t believe mass balance is the best solution.”

Of course, the Fairtrade system isn’t broken for everyone, and there are chocolate makers doing great things with certified chocolate. Divine Chocolate, for instance, is 45% owned by Ghanaian cocoa co-operative Kuapa Kokoo. All their chocolate products use traceable Fairtrade certified cocoa from their own farmers and it doesn’t get mixed with non-certified beans.

During a recent online discussion about empowering smallholder farmers and fair trade practices at The Guardian, I asked Divine Managing Director Sophi Tranchell if the mass balance system was the fairest and most transparent solution.

Sophi Tranchell At The Kaupa Kokoo AGM
Photo © Divine Chocolate

“We don’t believe mass balance is the best solution.”, she replied. “All the cocoa we buy for Divine is Fairtrade and from Kuapa Kokoo. So we know the quality and taste of the cocoa we’re buying is due to the good practices of the Kuapa farmers. We think consumers would expect no less.”

“If we don’t do something, we’ll start to lose much of the best cacao.”

There is no doubt that Fairtrade does a lot of good, and I will continue to buy certified products regularly. But it seems that the current system is broken and being taken advantage of by giants like Kraft and Nestlé. With a little sleight of hand, consumers are led to believe their £1 bar of Dairy Milk is just as ethical as an artisan bar costing many times the price, so why would they pay more?

“If we don’t do something, we’ll start to lose much of the best cacao – and maybe the bulk stuff as well.” says Martin Christy. “If you do the the maths backwards from a £1.30 100g Fairtrade bar there’s no way, once you’ve taken off all the margins, that the farmer is getting enough to live on.”

I don’t know if the future of ethical chocolate lies in reform of the Fairtrade system, or in something entirely different like Direct Cacao. What I do know is that we all need to be paying more attention to where our chocolates come from, and organisations like Fairtrade need to be more transparent in explaining exactly what we can expect when we see a bar with that little round logo on.

Win Mothers Day Chocolates From Kokopelli’s

Update: This competition is now closed.

Mother’s Day is approaching fast, and what better way to express your appreciation than with a box of handmade, artisan chocolates from Kokopelli’s, one of our favourite chocolatiers.

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning this beautiful prize is answer the simple question below. Please make sure you read all the rules before entering.

In what city are Kokopelli’s based?

Update: This competition is now closed.

You’ll find a big clue to the answer on Kokopelli’s web site.

The Rules

• Please take a moment to Like Kokopelli’s on Facebook.
• The competition is open to UK residents only.
• One entry per household only.
• The competition closes at midday on Tuesday 5th March.
• The winner will be notified by email on the closing date. Please make sure you supply a valid email address and respond promptly if you win, so we can get your prize to you by Mother’s Day.

Zotter Easter Fire

Ah, Zotter, how I’ve missed your zany Fair Trade chocolate. It’s been a while, but thankfully, Lee from Chocolatiers.co.uk sent me this Easter themed bar to try.

So what flavours have Zotter chosen to represent the Easter season? Why Advocaat and Chilli, of course!

And why not.

With Zotter Easter Fire, the traditional Easter Advocaat and chilli is mixed into a white chocolate ganache with a few other ingredients, before being wrapped in a 40% bean-to-bar milk chocolate.

How does it taste? Well, like Advocaat and chilli, of course! It’s actually very nice indeed. The filling is smooth and creamy, with a very gentle alcohol kick. The chilli is a little bit stronger than I was expecting, and that’s fine by me. The heat gently builds as the chocolate melts and leaves you with a rather nice tingling sensation. Perfect for the cold whether we’re having here in the UK at the moment.

As with most of these filled ‘hand scooped’ Zotter bars, the chocolate is very thin, so you don’t get a lot of flavour from it unless you take the time to lick it off first. In the interest of science, that’s exactly what I did, and it has a very pleasant, creamy flavour. But the filling is definitely the star here.

If you want to try something a little bit different this Easter, then I can highly recommend it. As Lee states on the Chocolatiers website, it’s probably not one for kids, what with the alcohol and chilli. But for grown ups, it certainly beats a Creme Egg.

Duffy’s Panama Cocoa Tea

Last week I reviewed a chocolate tea from Metrodeco, which I enjoyed, but didin’t find particularly chocolatey. At the same time, and completely coincidentally, Duffy Sheardown sent me a pack of his own cocoa tea to try.

This is an entirely different interpretation of a chocolate tea though. For a start, it’s an infusion as there’s no tea in it at all – it’s actually 100% pure cocoa. Duffy’s explanation is that the word ‘infusion’ sounds a bit clinical, and I’m inclined to agree. Look at the tea shelf of any supermarket and you’ll see a plethora of flavoured infusions that aren’t actually tea.

Whatever you want to call it, this product is made from 100% pure Panama origin cocoa beans and nothing else. It’s a mix of cocoa shells (the part of the bean that’s usually discarded), and cocoa nibs (the part that usually becomes chocolate. In other words, it’s the whole bean with nothing added and nothing taken away. It’s simply been roasted as it would be to make chocolate.

When you open the packet, you’re greeted with the most amazing, deep chocolatey smell. It’s utterly fantastic, and I could happily just stand and sniff the packet all day. As you might expect, it smells exactly like a chocolate factory.

Duffy recommends making this brew in a cafetiere, but I happened to have some fillable teabags, so I decided to just add a couple of teaspoons full of the mixture to a bag and dunk it in a cup full of hot water. I’m not a fan of washing up, and teabags are so convenient!

Immediately, the aroma changes to one of a super-rich hot chocolate. It’s tempting to drink it immediately, but I decided to give it a couple of minutes before removing the teabag.

Now here’s where you have a choice. Even the best cocoa beans can be a little bitter if you’re not used to the flavour, so you’ll probably want to sweeten this. You can use sugar, honey, or anything you like to sweeten it – I happened to have some vanilla sugar to hand, so I put a teasponful in my cup and settled down to try it.

The flavour is amazing. As you breathe in the vapours, your mind is tricked into believing you’re about to try the richest, creamiest hot chocolate imaginable. But the flavour is something different entirely. It’s pure chocolate, but it’s light and refreshing. You’re not going to feel bloated after a cup of this, you’re going going to feel calmed, refreshed, and ready for another cup.

I love this stuff. It’s about as simple as a chocolate drink can be, and that’s the beauty of it. If you’re not used to rich, dark chocolates, then I recommend experimenting with the amount of sweetener, or even adding a little milk. For me, just a single spoon of sugar and it’s perfect.

Highly recommended.