Your chocolate habit
has a hidden cost
Children as young as nine are working in cocoa fields. Farmers often earn less than $1 a day. And the labels on your favourite chocolate may not tell the whole story.
5.5kg
Average chocolate eaten by every Australian every year
THE FACTS
72c
of every $8 chocolate block reaches the cocoa farmer who grew it
95%
of Ghana's 400,000+ cocoa farmers are not earning a living income
25 years
The chocolate industry has been promising to end child labour since 2001. It hasn't.
WHERE DOES YOUR $8 GO?
Be Slavery Free modelled the distribution of an $8 Cadbury Dairy Milk block sold at an Australian supermarket.
The farmer who does the hardest work — clearing, planting, harvesting — takes home less than 9% of the retail price. Be Slavery Free estimates that just 20 cents more per block would be enough to bring many farmers to a living income. For the world's largest chocolate companies, that cost increase would be a rounding error. For farming families, it could be transformative.
THE REALITY ON THE GROUND
Children doing hazardous work
Four Corners' investigation found children doing hazardous work on cocoa farms. This is modern slavery and this is illegal.
Farmers below the poverty line
95% of Ghana's cocoa farmers are not earning enough to cover basics like running water, healthcare, or education. The General Secretary of Ghana's farmer cooperative, representing over 400,000 members, says the system simply doesn't work for them.
Decades of broken promises
The chocolate industry promised to end child labour in 2001. Deadlines passed in 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2020. Child labour remains widespread across Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
"Missing school because harvest season needs hands... None of this happens because parents don't love their children."
Insider who filmed the evidence for Four Corners
CAN YOU TRUST THE LABELS?
Most major certification schemes, including Rainforest Alliance, which appears on many popular chocolate brands, use a system called "mass balance." Certified and non-certified cocoa can be mixed together in the same supply chain.
A product can carry a certification logo even if it contains non-certified cocoa, as long as the company has purchased an equivalent volume of certified beans somewhere else in the system.
The sustainability label on your chocolate may not reflect what happened on the farm.
"They're marketing labels. They're about making more money for the chocolate companies."
Carolyn Kitto OAM
Co-director, Be Slavery Free
FUND THE CAMPAIGN FOR CHANGE
The price of a living income is 20 cents a block
You'll eat about 30 blocks of chocolate this year. If each one paid just 20 cents more to the farmer who grew the cocoa, many families in Ghana could earn a living income. That's $6. Donate it to Be Slavery Free — and help us campaign for the industry to do the same.
What you can do
1.
Watch Four Corners
Understand the reality behind your chocolate.
Watch the Four Corners episode →