Miriam Sandum Næss / Articles

Illustration photo from Flicr account "wenzday"

Hershey has produced chocolate since the late 19^th century, and has now captured 42.5% of the American chocolate market. The big company has over the years also build up their own enemies, and the recent enemy has become Time to Raise the Bar, a action group which started last year by Green America, Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Forum and followed by other fair trade and green organizations. They have got over 50.000 supporters to get Hershey to make a stand against child-labor in the cocoa business. With out any proof either way they have worked systematic over the past year with brand- jam, demonstration and boycotts of their brand. However, is Hershey an evil corporation or just secretive, and why focus on them when there are many other big corporations in the business?

The chocolate business as a whole.

First we need to step out of the Hershey frame and look at cocoa production as a whole. West Africa stands for about 70% of the cocoa production in the world and have more than 1.5 million small family farms set up across the regio¹n. A survey in 2002 showed that 284 000 children worked in cocoa farms in West Africa. The survey which were supervised by the International Labor Office and the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor said that the conditions were horrible for the children which sometimes worked under unfree conditions. Recent reports from different organizations has showed that this still is the case on the different coco production farms.

In 2001 the industry signed a commitment to develop a certification standards, the standard was to produce cocoa without the worst kind of child labor, this was defined by the International Labor Organization's Convention 182. Hershey, among others, signed the Cocoa Protocol of 2001. The deadline was first set to July 2005, and was later pushed to July 2008 due to little progress form the industry. Ten years later the industry has started to show some progress in the matter. Time to Raise the Bar published a grading system in September 2011 which Mars and Nestlé got a pass grade. Hershey it self have got a failing grade.

“A full decade after Hershey committed to ending the exploitation of children in its chocolate, it is a sad reality that this iconic chocolate brand continues to lag behind its competitors in ensuring that its primary ingredient does not harm children." was Judy Gearhart, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum, comment on the report to CSRWire in September 2011.

The proof

Now lets go back into the frame of Hershey and Time to Raise the Bar. Hershey has never gone out with where they get the cocoa from. The closes you get is this statement from their webpage; “We purchase these products directly from third-party suppliers, which source cocoa beans grown mainly in Asian, West African and South American equatorial regions. Because West Africa accounts for approximately 70 percent of the world’s supply of cocoa beans, we focus our efforts to promote sustainable cocoa sourcing in that region.”

For the three organizations behind Time to Raise the Bar this isn't enough however. They have three main arguments that goes against Hershey; Sourcing, Transparency, Greenwashing and Certification

That Hershey buys a lot of their cocoa from West Africa and that they don't have a system in place to ensure that there are no child labor for that region, is their sourcing argument. Jeff Beckman, Hershey's director of corporate communications, comment on this in EHS Today "(Hersey) care(s) deeply about these issues and work(s) hard to ensure that our cocoa is responsibly sourced. It's important to us that all members of our global cocoa supply chain are fairly treated. Hershey's support for cocoa communities goes back more than 50 years. We are actively engaged in programs that help develop more productive agriculture practices, build educational and community resources and eliminate exploitative labor practices."

The second, Transparency, argues that Hershey still want to identify theirs cocoa suppliers, on that ground no one can know if there has been child-labor in the production.

Then we have reached the the third argument Greenwashing, Hershey has been involved in several charity cases, recent was their set up of "CocoaLink: Connecting Cocoa Communities". A program developed by the World Cocoa Foundation, Ghana Cocoa Board and Hershey. This whole new programs uses mobile phones to give the farmers with information about farming practices, safety, child-labour, health, etc. Time to Raise the Bar is not totally sure how this program will help the farmers and is of the opinion that all the charity is greenwashing and that it takes the eyes away away from the real problem, that Hershey has no policy to ensure that no child-labor is used in the cocoa production.

Down to the last argument, Certification, or rather the lack of it. Dagoba line is the only one chocolate bar which is fair trade certified (since 2006), but according to Time to Raise the bare this line is not sourced from West Africa.

Basically Time to Raise the Bar`s main argument is; “Without any third party certification for the overwhelming majority of its products, internal policies to apply its standards to cocoa producers, nor transparency about its cocoa sources, it is likely that cocoa made under abusive conditions is used in Hershey’s supply chain.”

Raise the Bar, has now campaigned since 2010 for Hershey to be transparent about where they get their cocoa from and that it is certified according to the International Labor Organization's Convention 182. So far Hershey has not met their demands, but still claims that they are not into child labor and they get support . "Hershey without question has been a leader in addressing labor and farmer livelihood issues in West Africa (...) Along with many partners in government, civil society and private industry Hershey has worked for more than 10 years to support programs that improve access to education, enhance productivity and incomes, eliminate hazardous labor and improve the overall health and wellbeing of cocoa communities,” stated Susan Smith, senior vice president, Strategic Communications, for the National Confectioners Association to EHS Today in September 2011.

In the end

With Hershey as the biggest chocolate business in the state and it can be called a chocolate icon. It is hard to prove anything for or against child-labor. However with and yearly revenue of $5 billion a year you can also suspect that they are lobbing towards their against in Washington. Tulane Report state that;

“We were well aware that Industry paid Washington lobbying firms to lobby on their behalf to prevent legislated controls on the Industry,”² when they tried on behalf of the Government to investigate child labor in the cocoa business. Hershey has proven to do good in the world and Time to Raise the Bar don't deny it, they just do not think it is enough and that Hershey as a icon in the chocolate business should clear up their loose ends. Even if their are no evidence on way or another the questions goes back to; Why do the marketing department at Hershey let organization like change.org and Green America go on and campaign against them for so long? If they had proof that they had certified cocoa, why cant they just go out with that? Unless they actually don't care about child-labor as long as the prices are low. Unless they don't have proof either way. It is hard to look into a company like Hershey when they don't want you too, but as long as they don't wanna prove what they are preaching you can only assume that there are some shady business in the corporation they don't want you to now.