By Charlotte Eyre
...According to a 2007 UK Department for Environment, Rural and Food affairs (DEFRA), more than half of consumers in the country said that they try not to buy products whose ethics they disagree with. A slightly smaller proportion, 45 per cent, said they would be prepared to pay more for ethically-sourced food.
At first glance, companies seem to be taking these concerns on board. In the past fortnight alone, Cadbury announced its own Cocoa Partnership in Ghana, and Nestle and Mars signed up to the Good Inside Cocoa Programme, established by Utz Certified.
However, when added to Blommer's Cote d'Ivoire alliance of Farmers, Olam International and Blommer Chocolate (CIFOB), Cargill and Barry Callebaut's membership to the World Cocoa Foundation, as well as various Fairtrade certified companies such as Divine, the issue starts to become a lot more complicated...