Chocolate

Group # 5
Denisse Nieto
Carolina Salas
Karen Vargas
Hsiulin Wong
Group Project: Product analysis
Section: Wealth & Poverty

Product: Chocolate

Questions:
1) How is the product manufactured?
2) What is the importance of the product in today’s society?
3) What does this product tell us about wealth and poverty in the world today?

Chocolate has always found its waythrough people's hearts. Nicknamed the "food of the gods", chocolate originated in Mexico, starting first with the Mayans. The very word conjures feelings of pleasure, sensuality, and the richness of life. It is made of cacao. The top six cacao producing countries are located within 20 degrees of the Equator, they are: Brazil, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Indonesia and Ivory Coast that produces 43%of the world’s cacao.
Regarding its production, cacao is grown by hand on family-run farms. One of the first steps in cacao growing is to plant the tiny trees. Most start off life in a fiber basket or plastic bag. The seedlings usually shoot up quickly, and after a few months they are ready to be transplanted, container and all. It usually takes between three to five years to produce pods filledwith cocoa beans.
The delicate cacao tree prefers to grow far beneath the protective leaves of other trees. It can grow in full sun, which can provide immediate financial benefits to farmers. Fortunately, most of today’s cacao farms practice sustainable methods of growing cacao under the shade of taller trees.
While details differ, most manufacturers follow the same general process to turn cacaoseeds into chocolate. Professionals at the factory take and test samples to ensure the chocolate meets or exceeds safety and quality standards. Special equipment control temperatures and air moisture content to ensure each batch is consistent and high quality. All chocolate manufacturers must meet certain standards set. These standards set minimum percentages of ingredients for various kinds ofchocolate and govern which flavorings may be used. 
However while we enjoy the sweet taste of chocolate, the reality is strikingly different for African children. Young boys are tricked into slavery, sold as slaves to Ivory Coast farmers, located in West Africa. According to the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their parents or in some cases stolen and then shippedto Ivory Coast. (Kenyon, 2010)
Chocolate is a symbol of sweetness and innocence, but Western chocolate consumers know there is nothing sweet and nothing innocent about slavery. On 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to set up a labeling system so consumers could be assured no slave labor was used in the production of their chocolate. But this measure would only lead to boycott allIvory Coast cocoa. No producer using Ivory Coast cocoa could possibly state that none of its chocolate was produced by child slavery. (Smith, 2001)
The U.S chocolate industry is dominated by two firms: Hershey's and M&M Mars. Unfortunately, both of these companies fall into the category of those companies who use large amounts of Ivory Coast cocoa, and whose products are almost certainlyproduced in part by slavery. Other companies whose chocolate is almost certainly tainted with child slavery include: Ben & Jerry's, Cadbury Ltd., Godiva, Guittard Chocolate Company, Kraft, Nestle, See's Candies, The Chocolate Vault, and Toblerone. Though most of these companies have condemned slavery, and expressed a great deal of moral outrage that it exists in the industry, they each haveacknowledged that they use Ivory Coast cocoa and so have no grounds to ensure consumers that their products are slavery-free.
Chocolate is important for nowadays society because according to various investigations, it has been discovered apparently Aztecs and Mayans knew chocolate was very valuable for human life. This product generates endorphin in our brain, which helps to relax and also produces a...