Ethical Chocolate

Is chocolate ethical?

Child labour, poorly paid farmers, and unjust global distribution of profits are key ingredients in the global chocolate industry. Multinationals are also cashing in on the vegan market, launching vegan versions of well-known brands, but are these ethical or eco friendly?

With hundreds of options available, this guide will help you choose sustainable and ethical chocolate brands who are making a difference to people and planet. The brands rated in this guide scored from 0 points up to the near maximum, so ethical chocolate is available, and at different prices to suit different budgets.

Europe’s guilty pleasure

The majority of the world’s cocoa is grown by small farmers in West Africa, where it’s the source of livelihood for millions of people. But cocoa farmers receive barely any of the chocolate industry’s $100 billion revenue: estimates range between 6% and 11%.

Few farmers can afford chocolate and many have never tasted it, with over half of Ivory Coast’s cocoa farmers living below the global poverty line, and their countries taste virtually none of the industry’s profits either.

After cocoa beans are harvested (64% of the world’s beans are grown in Africa, 15% in South America and 13% in Asia), the majority are exported to international companies for the most profitable production stages: processing, packaging and retail.

If the beans were distributed equally worldwide, Europe would get 9%, but instead we import an astronomical 50% of the world’s cocoa. After manufacture, most of the world’s ready-to-eat chocolate (75%) is exported by Europe, though much of this is European countries selling to their neighbours.

Europe eats more chocolate than anywhere else, eating between 45%–55% of the world’s supply, followed by the US at 18%. Europe therefore eats the most chocolate and the most profit … despite the fact you can’t even grow cocoa here.

Chocolate’s colonial origins

Europeans had no concept of chocolate before the colonial period. Cocoa originally grew in South America, where it was consumed for thousands of years as a bitter drink. European colonisers added sugar to it, and it was first made into a solid in Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century.

When European powers started losing imperial holds on cocoa-producing areas like Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, they pushed for production to expand into Africa instead, which had a good cocoa-growing climate, even though it’s not an indigenous crop, and lots of cheap labour.

Lifecycle of a cocoa bean: from bean to bar

How does the cocoa bean get turned into a sweet and smooth chocolate bar?

Cocoa beans are harvested by families, who ‘might’ receive just $500 per year. The beans are passed onto intermediary suppliers, and are exported on ships across the world. The beans may end up in a big pool of for example Mondelēz ‘Cocoa Life’ certified beans. They could be turned into a Cadbury’s chocolate bar which we buy in a shop, ultimately enabling Mondelēz's CEO to get paid an annual USD$18 million. 

Are chocolate certifications effective?

Fairtrade International and Rainforest Alliance (which former certifier UTZ merged with) are the only large-scale cocoa certifiers that guarantee a premium. Low income is the root cause of cocoa issues like child labour and deforestation, so a premium on top of the market price is important, but the premium from Fairtrade is more than three times as high as the premium from Rainforest Alliance.

• Best = Fairtrade International
• Adequate = Rainforest Alliance
• Usually unfit for purpose = corporate sustainability schemes.

How is the price of cocoa determined?

Cocoa pricing is complex. There’s ‘farmgate’ price, which describes exactly what the farm gets paid. The Ghanaian and Ivory Coast governments agree this price with international chocolate companies. It’s $1,330 per metric ton (MT) in Ivory Coast, for example.

However, this price increases when the cocoa leaves the farm and passes over to intermediaries. So, another important figure is the ‘Free-On-Board’ (FOB) price, which refers to the price on export. In Ivory Coast the government has set this to $2,347 per metric ton.

What’s the impact of Fairtrade certification?

Fairtrade minimum price

Part of the Fairtrade model is to have a minimum price, which must be paid when the market price falls below it. In our last chocolate guide (2020) the minimum price was lower than the Ivory Coast government’s price, so the Fairtrade minimum effectively wasn’t doing anything. However, in 2021 the government lowered its price, meaning that if a company bought chocolate on Fairtrade terms those farmers wouldn’t face as much of a financial hit. This shows how Fairtrade helps limit farmers’ exposure to market volatility.

The Fairtrade Minimum Price at FOB for cocoa is $2,400 per MT ($53 above the minimum market price at FOB required by the government in Ivory Coast.)

The Fairtrade premium

Buyers also have to pay a Fairtrade premium (community investment) of $240 per MT.

The premium goes into a communal fund for workers and farmers to use – as they see fit – to improve their social, economic, and environmental conditions. Combining minimum price and premium, buying Fairtrade chocolate contributes an extra 12.5% into the Ivory Coast farmers’ community than non-certified chocolate. (NB, 'fair trade' isn’t a protected term, so sometimes it means virtually nothing. Make sure you’re looking for Fairtrade’s official logo or the words: “Fairtrade International”. We have an article on fair trade labels and certification schemes for food.)

What’s the impact of Rainforest Alliance certification?

Sustainability Differential

Rainforest Alliance requires payment of a Sustainability Differential (SD): an extra payment made to certified producers on top of the market price.

At the time of writing this was $70 per MT, meaning that farmers signed up to its scheme receive an extra 3% on top of the market price.

It doesn’t have its own minimum price like Fairtrade, however, so if the market price drops farmers could still find themselves in the lurch (but they’ll still be getting $70 more than non-certified farmers).

Sustainability Investments

Rainforest Alliance also requires payment of Sustainability Investments (SI), which are cash or in-kind investments from buyers that should help farmers reach compliance with Rainforest Alliance’s standards.

But we found no information on whether there was a minimum SI, what the average SI was, or how impactful SI investments actually are.

Do corporate sustainability schemes have any impact?

Most big chocolate companies have their own sustainability schemes, for example Mondelēz (Cadbury)’s ‘Cocoa Life’, Nestlé’s ‘Cocoa Plan’, Hotel Chocolat’s ‘Gentle Farming’, and Mars’ ‘Cocoa for Generations’.

But these schemes tend to cover just a proportion of the company’s cocoa suppliers, as opposed to 100%, meaning some farmers get the benefits but others get none. As Sandra’s story in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme shows (see below), even conditions on farms participating in schemes can be terrible – which may not come as a surprise to those of you who have doubts about multinational corporations marking their own homework.

A 2023 Oxfam report says: “robust, public data on the income effects of companies’ interventions are virtually nonexistent … The price premiums paid by companies are too low to make a significant difference in farmers’ incomes … Without more pronounced and ambitious efforts by companies, a living income will remain an illusion for most farmers across companies’ cocoa supply chains.”

Example: Hotel Chocolat

Hotel Chocolat’s Gentle Farming programme pays $2.33/kg, which is lower than Fairtrade but much higher than market rates. But there’s no clear figure stating how much of its overall cocoa is sourced through the programme.

What should big brands be doing about cocoa certification?

Despite what their sustainability reports claim, big chocolate brands are dragging their feet when it comes to improving conditions for cocoa farmers. The Ivory Coast and Ghana governments accuse chocolate companies of doing “everything possible” to prevent the cost of cocoa from increasing, and even trying to drive it back down.

According to Oxfam, there are two clear options for big companies who want to take meaningful action towards a living wage for cocoa farmers:

1. Honour the Living Income Differential (LID): Companies’ public statements of support for the LID have according to Oxfam “not been shared by their procurement teams”, with companies using bargaining power to offset the higher costs.

2. Honour the Fairtrade Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) model for cocoa. This means making additional payments to farmers to enable a living income. Tony’s Chocolonely is the only company to have adopted this at large scale. See further below for a profile of Tony's.

How do chocolate brands score for their cocoa rating?

We considered a brand’s cocoa sourcing policy to be ‘adequate’ if 100% of their cocoa was:

• Certified by Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade International
• Better than Fairtrade, including payment of at least the Fairtrade premium
• Value-added-at-source

The following were adequate and did not lose marks for this rating: '57 Chocolate, Chocolat Madagascar, Cocoa Loco, Conscious, Divine, Fairafric, MIA, MonChoco, Moo Free, Ombar, Pacari, Raw Chocolate Company, Tony's Chocolonely, and Vego.

Brands that didn’t meet these criteria were considered to have an ‘inadequate’ cocoa sourcing policy and lost half a mark in the Workers’ Rights category. The majority of brands’ cocoa sourcing ratings were inadequate.

If you are wondering why Booja Booja scores highly in the table but is not one of our recommended brands, it's because its cocoa sourcing policy was inadequate.

Child labour and deforestation in the cocoa industry

Cocoa farmers’ income is so low that it’s commonplace for them to rely on child labour and deforestation to get by. Up to 9 out of 10 Ghanaian and Ivory Coast cocoa farmers don’t earn a living income, and net income of cocoa farmers continues to fall.

Deforestation

Cocoa trees need at least three years to become productive and while they typically have an economic life of 30 to 40 years, yields start to decline after about 15 years. This means that just to maintain production farmers may find themselves embroiled in cycles of deforestation to boost short-term yield.

Ghana and Ivory Coast have lost around 94% and 80% of their forests in the past 60 years, one-third of it to make way for cocoa. About 40% of Ivorian cocoa is estimated to have come from inside protected forest areas, technically making it illegal.

It’s been hoped that agroforestry could be part of the solution. This means growing cocoa under moderate shade (like rainforest canopy) rather than full sun. Company reports are full of Agroforestry Action Plans and numbers of seedlings distributed. However, survival rates of distributed trees is less than 2%. But some NGOs see this as an area in which increased investment from companies is a positive thing that could see more impact in future.

Child labour

You’ve almost definitely eaten chocolate made using child labour: 4 in 10 cocoa-growing households in Ivory Coast are estimated to use child labour, and 6 in 10 in Ghana.

The following are significant risks to child cocoa farmers:

• sustaining scars from weeding using machetes
• neck damage from carrying heavy loads on their heads
• being injured by sharp tools used to crack open cocoa pods

Ivory Coast’s government has taken steps aimed at curbing child labour, including trying to make chocolate companies pay prices high enough for farmers to live on without resorting to child labour, but the issues are far from being resolved.

Palm oil and chocolate

Some brands add palm oil, a significant driver of deforestation, to chocolate or other products.

The following received our worst rating for palm oil: Cadbury, Ferrero Rocher, Galaxy, Green & Black's, H!P, Kinder, Kit Kat, Love Cocoa, Maltesers, Mars, Milka, Nestlé, Smarties, Thorntons, and Toblerone.

See our feature on palm oil free chocolate for all the company ratings on this.

Ethical chocolate: value-added-at-source

If you want to take the profit out of gluttonous European hands (while still enjoying some actual chocolate in your own) then value-added-at-source (VAS) chocolate enables you to do this.

VAS chocolate is chocolate that was manufactured in the same country that the cocoa beans were grown in, meaning more profits stay inside the cocoa-growing country.

Benefits of buying VAS chocolate

• Your money adds to the wealth of cocoa-growing countries.
• You’re directly helping micro companies and local job creation.
• You’re helping budding chocolatiers in cocoa-growing countries survive in this European-dominated industry.
• A shorter supply chain, making it easier to trace ingredients back to source and ensure workers’ rights are upheld.

Getting less for your money (less chocolate, less child labour, less poverty wages)

Business-as-usual chocolate is wrapped up in child labour, poorly paid farmers, and unjust global distribution of profits.

VAS chocolate is more expensive because local companies face issues including lack of refrigeration and difficulty sourcing four of the five main ingredients in chocolate: milk, sugar, vanilla and lecithin (a stabiliser), which, as small companies, they can’t bulk buy. Solutions and alternatives have to be developed and these add to production costs.

How to choose the most ethical chocolate for your budget

If you want to eat chocolate, but don't want to support unfair and unsustainable practices, our flowchart helps you find ethical brands which suit your wallet and your chocolate demands.

The flowchart features Best Buys and Recommended brands on price and ethics. Prices may vary and were correct as of August 2023 using example bars from company websites, and are per 100g.

Is chocolate an occasional treat, or is it one of your main food groups? Depending on how much you eat, and how much you can afford, there are different ethical brands available.

So for example, if you can get by with a small amount for occasional treats, and can afford to pay a bit more, the top ethical option is buying from value-added-at-source brands.

Limited budget (£1-2 per 100g)

• Tony’s Chocolonely (£1.67)

If Tony’s is too expensive go for Coop (£1.25) or Waitrose (£1.12) own-brand Fairtrade chocolate.

Can afford a bit (£2-5 per 100g)

• Conscious* (£4.98)
• Raw Chocolate Company* (£4.37)
• Cocoa Loco* (£3.98)
• Ombar (£3.57)
• Vego (£3.33)
• Fairafric* (top choice £3.13)
• Moo Free (£2.85)
• Divine (£2.67)

Can afford to pay more (£5-16 per 100g): VAS chocolate

• 57’ Chocolate* (£15.75)
• MonChoco* (£11.14)
• Pacari* (£10.30)
• MIA* (£8.75)
• Chocolate Madagascar* (£7.80)
• Fairafric* (just £3.13 and still a top choice)

(*For brands marked with an asterisk, postage costs are included in the price, based on orders of 8-12 bars.)

Discounts on ethical chocolate

Some brands sell discounted ‘wonky chocolate’ (Moo Free) or subscription services (Raw Chocolate’s 15% subscription discount reduces its price to £3.71/100g).

How do chocolate brands rate for various ethical and environmental issues?

Plastic and packaging

This guide features one of the world’s worst plastic-polluting brands: Nestlé.

If you’re fed up of plastic then the following appear to use none at all in their chocolate packaging: Cocoa Loco, Conscious, Divine, Fairafric, H!P, Montezuma’s, Raw Chocolate Company, Seed & Bean, and Tony’s Chocolonely.

Fairafric uses NatureFlex foil, which is made from wood pulp sustainable forestry and is biodegradable in your own compost. Some stockists sell Fairafric chocolate in refill pots, so you can buy it totally packaging-free.

Boycotts

Mondelēz faces a boycott call in the Nordic region for ongoing operations in Russia. While it has scaled back, it hasn’t stopped operations completely. Norwegian airlines, railway groups, hotel chains, retailers, and the Norwegian Football Association have all cut ties with Mondelēz, which claims it is being unfairly "singled out".

Nestlé is still being boycotted for its baby milk marketing.

Tax conduct

Ferrero, Mars, Mondelēz, and Nestlé all scored our worst rating for Tax Conduct. Nestlé had high-risk subsidiaries for tax avoidance in known tax havens including Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and Netherlands.

Product Sustainability

Companies received whole Product Sustainability marks for being value-added-at-source or Fairtrade certified. They received a half mark for Rainforest Alliance certification. They also received a whole mark for being certified organic.

Is there ethical sugar-free chocolate?

Some brands make sugar-free chocolate, either milk or dark varieties.

Sugar-free milk chocolate (plant-based or dairy milk): Conscious, Hotel Chocolat, Lindt, Pacari, Plamil, Raw Chocolate Company.

Sugar-free dark chocolate: Booja Booja, Chocolat Madagascar, MIA, Montezuma’s, Ombar, Seed & Bean.

Interestingly, Cadbury Dairy Milk contains more sugar than it does cocoa. The UK legal minimum amount of cocoa in a chocolate bar is just 20%. Ingredients are listed by weight so you can get some idea of its makeup by looking at the packaging.

Is there ethical chocolate which is not a bar?

Some of our Best Buys brands also sell different types of chocolate snacks, such as:

• Buttons: Conscious, Ombar, Raw Chocolate Company
• Chocolate-covered nuts and fruit: Conscious, Fairafric, Pacari, Raw Chocolate Company
• Pralines and selection boxes: MonChoco
• Chocolate-covered honeycomb: Moo Free
• Malteser-esque: Moo Free.

Brands not included in the guide

We have to be really selective about brands to research in this massive sector, but we aim to cover the most ethical and the most well known.

Beyond Good was removed since our last guide as it no longer retails in the UK. Nomo and Monty Bojangles were on our radar, but preliminary research suggested they were unlikely to be Best Buys or Recommended brands. Ritter and Guylian seemed likely to score average at best.

You can use the ‘What to buy/not to buy?’ questions to do your own research on brands we didn’t include.

Key to letters in score table after brand name e.g. Pacari [F,O,S]

• F = Fairtrade certified or marketed as fair trade
• O = Organic
• S = Value added at source
• RA = Rainforest Alliance certified

Additional research by Sorcha Perris.