SALİM KADIBEŞEGİL

Are we aware of how “sour” the chocolate is that surrounds all our lives?
Do we know how “sour” the flavor actually is that is left on our palates by an almost infinite variety of fabulously packaged chocolates?

While it’s supposed to be the symbol of love and passion…
While it’s supposed to be the flavor of the pleasures enhancing life…

While it’s supposed to bring along a remembrance with every bite…
While it’s supposed to be the meeting point of friendships, brotherhoods and romances…
While it’s supposed to lead to the sweetest conversations…
We are left with this sour chocolate because it comes with a heart-wrenching story.
Actually, kids like chocolate and chocolate likes kids. However, when children learn the sour story behind chocolate, even they won’t like the chocolate that loves them so much!

The story is about children’s “servitude” in cocoa fields.
Those pretty packages hide a story about children being separated from their families while only 8-10 years old, sent to countries they haven’t heard of before and working for 16-18 hours a day for “little, if any” money. These children are actually “bought” from their families! And for really funny prices…
A “sour” breeze comes from those 400,000 children who are forced to work in cocoa fields near the coast of West Africa. These children can’t even manage to sleep because they are so tired.
They will never have the chance to taste chocolate even though they work in cocoa fields. Just like they will never have the chance to go to school.
This sour chocolate hides the stories of children carrying cocoa sacks larger than themselves to warehouses by hardly pulling them at these fields; their “chance to leave” is suppressed even though they want to at older ages.
The fact is that giant producers don’t adhere to international agreements they have signed even though they “promise to do the right thing.” This is hidden in the flavors of the chocolate we give each other as gifts.

In the countries where cocoa is the main source of income, the governments of “shushed” by the large chocolate manufacturers… Child labour, disorder and officiousness are ignored… The government authorities expect us to believe that those children come to their country for holiday!
Isn’t there a single good one among these producers? Isn’t there anyone that manages cocoa fields in a humanely way? Aren’t there companies that don’t tyrannize producers with money and give them what they deserve, improve working conditions, transform production into a nature friendly process and provide training and personal development opportunities to the children of those families working at their fields?
Of course there is. For example Green&Black!
The company that received “fair trade” certificate back in 1994 is ranked first among those names by managing to set example to the entire food industry, not just the chocolate industry with its vision. And the ones whose names you frequently hear and whose products you see on market shelves aren’t even in the list.

Chocolates should have a “fair trade” logo on their packages, so you know that they are not “sour”.
However for large players, “fair trade” ruins the flavor of chocolate on the face of global competition and financial ambition.
In the end, they leave a bitter story on your palate at every “bite”. Just like their name: “bitter”… But this is also “sour”…