Part of the Green Halloween 2006 series!
Halloween’s coming up! What’s a treehugging social activist to do? Hopefully, this series of posts’ll give you a good idea. The series is a collaboration of sorts between Cybele of the CandyBlog and I — She’ll deal more with the yummy factor, while I’ll focus more on enviro-ethical dimensions :)
So — First — What candy to buy for the cute trick-n-treaters who’ll come knocking on your door?
Well, I’ll start with who NOT to buy from. Which I usually hate to do, but damn it, it’s sorta necessary in the choco case.
Why? 3 huge companies — Nestle, Cargill, and Archer Daniels-Midland — dominate the chocolate market in the US. And all 3 have clearly shown that they don’t give a shit about the fact that their biz practices allow for abusive child labor in the Ivory Coast.
This means that the best-known chocolates — Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, etc. — ones we associate with warm happy childhood memories — might be made with cocoa harvested by children working under slave labor conditions in the Ivory Coast.
So — Avoid anything that sports Nestle in its name or logo. And beyond that, avoid these chocos:
100 Grand Bar, Aero, After Eight, Ambrosia, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Cailler, Crunch, Goobers & Chunky, Merckens, Peter’s, Oh, Henry!, Raisinets, Wilbur.
Next post: What chocos TO buy :)
Update: Here’s Cybele’s list of organic and/or fair trade candy she’s reviewed to date :)
Update, 10/12/06: The Nation agrees that “giving Western children candy that has been made by enslaved African children is horrifying and twisted.”
ah yes Halloween another Irish tradition taken over by America. I mean pumpkins seriously people what are pumpkins :)
Comment by simon — September 25, 2006 @ 11:51 am
I am a contractor at the Nestle HQ in Glendale. I’ll start you off with a list of Nestle brands you can start avoiding. Crunch, Butterfinger, Smarties, anything Wonka, Nescafe, Taster’s Choice, Nestea, Nesquick, Carnation, Coffee-Mate, Good Start, Buitoni, Maggi, Arrowhead, Ozarka, Perrier, S.Pellegrino, Purina, Powerbar, Dreyer’s, Juicy Juice, Stouffer’s/Lean Cuisine, and Hot Pockets.. just to name a few. Not to mention we are also associated with L’Oreal.
It’s hard for me to imagine anyone consciously purchasing cocoa from plantations that use forced child labor just to save a few bucks. Would it be naive of me to think that Nestle is trying to do something to improve the situation there? … I suppose it is. I’m glad there are blogs like yours that are informing people of what’s going on, I don’t think I would have known otherwise. Hopefully it will force corporations like Nestle to be more accountable for their actions, even if it is something they are not directly responsible for…or you could just give me some names and I can “take care” of things from the inside. ;P
Comment by bean — September 26, 2006 @ 1:46 am
Just to clarify, Bean … when you say Smarties, I’m guessing you mean the UK/Canadian chocolate candies that resemble M&Ms. The Smarties sold in the US are made by Ce De candies (still an independent company).
Other UK/Canadian/Mexican/Australian candies that folks might run across that are made by Nestle are Carlos V, Violet Crumble, Lifesavers (overseas), Aero, KitKat, Lion & Coffee Crisp and Baci.
Comment by cybele — September 26, 2006 @ 9:47 am
….and its such a shame, because im’ such a chocoholic and i crave Nestles’ crunch everynow & then! okay, i’m not buying anything from those companies this halloween! thanks for writing about this.
Comment by mayumi — September 27, 2006 @ 1:27 pm
Cybele — Yr so fucking knowlegeable about candy it scares me. I’m not worthy!
mayumi — I hear ya — But dude, once you try some of the yum FT chocos, you won’t go back. The main prob right now’s that they’re not as easily grabbable as the Crunches of the world –
Comment by Siel — September 28, 2006 @ 12:39 am