The bittersweet reality behind chocolate

it's rare to find someone who doesn't love  chocolate but there's something about one   of our favorite treats you may not know its key  ingredient comes from places that don't always   benefit from our Obsession Seth Doane has a report  that's Bittersweet your house is here just here   work is here and Kim Addison is on a culinary and  Cultural Mission of sorts to change our perception   of chocolate when we think of chocolate we think  you know Switzerland Belgium or France but never   Ghana never Côte d'Ivoire and those are the two  largest producers of cocoa in the world so how is   it that we're not known for our chocolate she's  trying to change that with 15 employees working   from this modest space in the African nation  of Ghana what was this building before it was   a chocolate factory it was actually my parents  first house give me and her sister Priscilla   Ghanains who grew up in America and around the  world are part of a growing effort to keep some   of the profits from the 100 billion chocolate  industry here they started their own company 57   chocolate 57 chocolate it's short for 1957 which  was Ghana's Independence but it's not just about   Ghana being free from Colonial rule it's more  about the spirit behind Ghana's Independence   hey as Ghanains as Africans we can do this as  a businesswoman she's motivated by some numbers   that do not make sense to her two-thirds of  the world's cacao the raw ingredient that's   roasted and used to make chocolate is grown in  the African nations of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory   coast and Ghana yet Africa produces just 1% of the  world's chocolate the biggest chocolate makers are   in the US and Europe which is where most of the  money goes too chocolate's story is certainly   not all sweet there are continuing issues of  trafficking children to work on plantations   for little or no pay an issue that touches even us  consumers a new lawsuit alleges customs in Border   Protection ignored evidence that child labor was  involved in harvesting cocoa for major US candy   makers the agency told us it cannot comment on  pending litigation today the Department of Labor   estimates that 1 and a half million children  still work illegally on Cocoa plantations we   visited Cocoa country to see where the problems  start and to understand some possible solutions   Ivans Kunube cracks open the pods to extract the  sweet slimy Bean which at this stage has a flavor   like leachee fruit and it tastes good I saw you  eating a few of them yeah earlier while there are   perks High pay is not among them do you feel like  you make enough money to have a decent living no   no no the average cocoa farmer in Ghana earns less  than $2 a day and it's labor intensive work once   the cocoa is collected it's left to ferment under  banana leaves for about 7 days then is laid out in   the sun to dry Steven Ashia has been farming cocoa  for 14 years and says he barely breaks even at the   end you'll buy chocolate bars no mostly I don't  buy chocolate the money we have it is better I use   it to buy heavy food rather than buy chocolate  that cannot fill my belly to come and work you   don't make enough money to afford chocolate yeah  yeah that's a bitter reality Dutch chocolate maker   Tony's Chocolonely is confronting nobody needs  chocolate and to me it's really unacceptable that   in something that's a luxury that's a gift that  people accept that there's extreme poverty at the   beginning of that supply chain Paul Schoenmakers  lead sustainability programs for Tony chocolonely   until last month the company's name nods to its  lonely place in this fight against exploitation   the two main problems are illegal labor and  massive deforestation and both of them are   driven by poverty what our program aims to do  is help farmers enable uh earn a living income   and uh with that we take away the root cause of  the issues in Cocoa they took us to see schools   they help support a common way many big chocolate  companies claim to be giving back but Schoenmakers   underlined that this what he called charity is  not enough boosting real incomes is essential he   says the price most chocolate companies are paying  for raw cocoa here a price set by the government   is too low compared to what Farmers need to live  we calculate how big big the Gap is between the   government set price and the living income price  and we pay that Gap as an extra premium for the   spring harvest the premium was about $63 higher  than what set by the government meaning Tony's   paid almost double for each bag of beans Tony's  also implemented a tracing system to follow the   beans through their supply chain Theophilus  Abaka monitors this step so knowing that you   be held responsible for whatever happens to  your beans it will help you to do the right   thing can you calculate how many chocolate bars  you can make from a bag like this of cocoa yeah   that's a good question it really depends on the  type of chocolate so a dark chocolate bar would   contain more cocoa than a milk chocolate  bar but on average a Tony's bar three to   500 bars from one bag 3 to 500 bars but farmers  were getting just $80 for each of these bags of   cocoa we is doubling de and it's still only a  small fraction of the retail price there's no   chocolate company will go bankrupt on that but it  will mean the whole world of of a difference for   Cocoa Farmers after it is fully dry the flavor  will come you start smelling the chocolate we   met Gifty Narkie drying cocoa beans for one of the  farmer cooperatives selling to Tony's my parents   were doing ah how about your grandparents they  too wow yeah how about their parents too so your   great great parents your grandparents your parents  Farmers all Coco farmers and now you yes she told   us she used some of the extra money Tony's pays  to make a capital investment she needs a second   job at first I don't have machine to sue but now  I have got some machine to sue because you got   extra money yes and you from Tony's yes working  through these cooperatives Tony's tries to build   the relationships needed to identify and root  out problems right on the bar it says we exist to   end modern slavery and illegal child labor in the  chocolate industry it's a goal but not a guarantee   we cannot do this on our own we have to develop a  model that is replicable and scalable so all other   chocolate companies can do the same as we do but  if I buy this piece of chocolate can you guarantee   that there's not child labor involved so if you  buy chocolate from Tony Chocolonely then you know   that we search for child labor search but can't  promise that it's not part of the chain somewhere   and we find child labor we also transparent about  the child labor case that we find but it's good   that we find it because that's a start of solving  it next season the Ghanaian government is raising   the price of Cocoa as part of an effort to combat  smuggling illegal gold mining on Cocoa plantations   and of course child labor at 57 chocolate Kimberly  Addison is trying her own way to keep more profits   in Ghana through controlling the production of  chocolate shouldn't we be adding value to that   cocoa in country consuming it in country and then  also making it available globally but there are   challenges you'd probably never think of in this  cocoa producing country there's the melting heat   inconsistent electricity and problems finding raw  materials like sugar and milk still Addison joins   a handful of other small companies working to  cultivate and profit from the growing taste for   chocolate here The prominent black leaders and  Ghanaian Independence figures featured on their   bars are a reminder of the spirit and potential  of this place there's so much value here on the   continent where there are problems there are  huge opportunities and what we're doing at 57   is we've seen a problem with something as small  as the cocoa bean and we've turned it into an opportunity

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 130,954

Keywords: Chocolate, Sunday Morning, World

Id: g6a6o10ouZ0

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023