Category: Resources

Bananas About Chocolate WebQuest

At the Chocolate Festival, Bruno and his friends learned about chocolate production. Now they want to start a chocolate company that is fair to everyone in the supply chain.  

INTRODUCTION

At the Chocolate Festival, Bruno and his friends learned about chocolate production. Now they want to start a chocolate company that is fair to everyone in the supply chain.  

You will join Bruno and his friends on a WebQuest in starting a fair and sustainable chocolate company. What chocolate product will you make together? 

BIG QUESTION

What practices will you adopt for a sustainable chocolate business and why? Consider: 

  • What effect has chocolate production had on people and the environment?  
  • What should we know about the impact of climate change on cacao farming? 

TASK

Your task is to do research, answer questions, and help Bruno create a chocolate product for his company.  

To understand the issues related to each part of the supply chain, you will take on a role and explain a problem from that person’s point of view in the chain. 

  • Cacao Farmer 
  • Fair Trader  
  • Environmentalist 
  • Manufacturer/ Retailer 

Then you will create an advertisement for Bruno’s Chocolate in which text, pictures, and/or videos will show what the company stands for and why people should buy this product.  

PROCEDURE  

Work in small groups (2-4 students) to research your role in the chocolate supply chain. Use the resources listed under your role. Write out answers to all your research questions and agree on them.  

Our relationship with chocolate began thousands of years ago. Over time, chocolate spread from the Americas to Africa to Asia. Today, the supply chain can barely keep up with demand. Many problems have grown up around chocolate production. Choose a role and start your research.  

Cacao Farmer 

A cacao farmer grows trees whose fruit is used to make chocolate. It is important to know the cost of cacao farming so we can understand how it affects the farmers’ health, income, and environment.

Use the links below to learn some key facts about the life of a cacao farmer. Answer the following questions: 

  1. What is the daily life of cacao farmers?
  2. What is the standard of living of cacao farmers?
  3. How does the cacao farmers’ work affect their environment and vice versa?

RESOURCES

Cacao Farmers Struggle to Meet Demands of the Chocolate Industry

Is Child Labor in Your Chocolate?

The Poppy Podcast – An Interview with a Cacao Farmer

Fair Trader  

A fair trader works with farmers and workers in the developing world to ensure they have good working conditions and get paid a fair price for what they produce, in this case cacao. It is important to know about fair trade partnerships so we can meet the full cost of producing products like chocolate.

Use the links below to learn some key facts about the work of a fair trade advocate. Answer the following questions:

  1. What is fair trade?
  2. What are some fair trade rules?
  3. How does fair trade benefit workers, their families, their community, and the environment?

RESOURCES

Video – What is Fair Trade?

What’s Fair About Fair Trade on Cacao Farms?

Podcast – Two Ways of Looking at Fair Trade

Environmentalist 

An environmentalist is someone who works to protect the environment. It is important to know about the work of environmentalists so we can understand how to sustain Earth’s resources and cut pollution.

Use the links below to learn some key facts about the work of an environmentalist in the cacao industry. Answer the following questions:

  1. What is chocolate’s carbon footprint?
  2. How does climate change affect chocolate production?
  3. How do we create a sustainable future for chocolate?

RESOURCES

Chocolate’s Carbon Footprint

Video – A World Without Chocolate

The Poppy Podcast – A Sustainable Future for Chocolate

Manufacturer/ Retailer

A manufacturer processes the cacao beans and turns them into big blocks of chocolate that are bought by chocolate companies. These companies or retailers then turn the chocolate into products like candy and sell them to customers in a shop. It is important to know the role of manufacturers and retailers so we can understand the complexity of the chocolate supply chain.

Use the links below to learn some key facts about chocolate manufacturing and retailing. Answer the following questions:

  1. What are the roles of traders, manufacturers, and retailers in the chocolate supply chain?
  2. What should be done to the chocolate supply chain to make the chocolate industry more sustainable?
  3. What sustainable practices should chocolate retailers adopt?

RESOURCES

The Chocolate Supply Chain

Video – Who Gets the Biggest Piece of Chocolate?

The Poppy Podcast – An Interview with a Chocolate Retailer

Play a Crossword Puzzle to see how you have learned about chocolate production through your research.

Form groups of 4 with representatives from each role and share information.

Play the Jungle Gym game to assess your understanding of practices in the chocolate industry.

Brainstorm ideas for an advertising campaign for Bruno’s Chocolate.

Discuss the Big Questions.

  • How can Bruno make a better supply chain for his chocolate business? (Which links in the supply chain can be eliminated? Who would benefit from your supply chain?)
  • What makes Bruno’s chocolate fair and sustainable?

Other discussion questions for the advertising campaign:

  • What chocolate product do you choose? What’s its name? What flavors does it have? What does it look like? How is it packaged?
  • Who buys your chocolate?
  • Where do you get primary ingredients?
  • What price are you charging for the chocolate?

Design an advertisement campaign for Bruno’s Chocolate explaining what makes it sustainable and why people should buy it. The final product can be a short video, a presentation, a skit, etc. Each group will have 5-8 minutes to present.

Give a 5-8 minute group presentation on Bruno’s Chocolate. Use the rubrics below to rate your own performance.

Is Child Labor in Your Chocolate?

Chocolate is a thriving business, and big companies make a lot of money selling it. The chocolate industry is worth a whopping 135 billion dollars, and it continues to grow. However, as these big companies continue to gain bigger market shares and higher profits, millions of cacao farmers bear the costs.

Chocolate is a thriving business, and big companies make a lot of money selling it. The chocolate industry is worth a whopping 135 billion dollars, and it continues to grow. However, as these big companies continue to gain bigger market shares and higher profits, millions of cacao farmers bear the costs––earning less and less each year, well below the international poverty line. 

Cacao doesn’t grow just anywhere. The trees need hot, humid climates. That’s one reason that nearly 70% cacao trees are grown in West African countries. However, most of the money is earned after the beans leave the farmers and only when they reach the Global North, where the beans are processed and made into chocolate as we know it.  

Back on the cacao farms, farmers and their workers scrape by with an average income of less than $1.25 a day. The disparity is shocking. Cacao farmers in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana alone make 60% of the world’s cocoa but earn only 3-6% of its retail value. 

On this amount, they cannot afford the basic necessities. They have little food, water or shelter. They cannot afford to send their children to school and are often forced to send them to work on cacao farms for another source of income. They work to survive, and their families depend on it.  

Unfortunately, the industry takes advantage of the situation. Much of the cacao harvested for mass-produced chocolate from major companies is often done by young teens and children. In fact, as many as 1.56 million children are estimated to be working on cacao farms in West African countries.  

Cacao farming is a challenging labor-intensive process. The fruit is cut straight from the branch with a sharp blade. Then it is cracked open with a machete or a wooden mallet so that the cacao beans can be scooped out. Imagine a child doing such dangerous work! On top of that, they are exposed to chemicals daily. 

Even if conditions were safe, child labor exploits children. They can’t attend school, and they are subject to abuse, injury, malnutrition, and exhaustion as farm workers.  

We should never tolerate child labor so that the rest of the world can have cheap chocolate. But what can we do to hold the chocolate industry accountable? We can start by paying a little more for a bar of chocolate.