| Products
- - - - - - -
COFFEE
- - - - - - -
TEA
- - - - - - -
CHOCOLATE
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
|
|
| |
|
How are Equal Exchange chocolate bars and cocoa products different from other brands? |
By choosing Equal Exchange chocolate and cocoa products, you support a company that:
- knows quality chocolate
- supports small farmer co-ops through Fair Trade
- supports organic farming practices and organic ingredients
AND
- is worker-owned
(Let's just say we're unique.)
- Organic farming methods and ingredients
Our farmer partners use sustainable farming methods, without harmful pesticides or fertilizers. Since the chocolate products are made without corn syrup, soy lecithin or other additives, it's a healthier option you can feel good about putting in your body.
It's also healthier for the planet. Cacao trees create shade for other plants (such as coffee), and cacao pods are composted and used as natural fertilizer.
-Read this FAQ on organic cacao farming.
-Read about the production process, from Bean to Bar.
- Free of child slave labor
Equal Exchange sources cacao exclusively from small-scale farmer co-ops in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru and Ecuador.
Sadly, this model is in stark contrast to the majority of the chocolate industry. In 2000 and 2001, journalists documented the continued practice of forced child labor in the West African cocoa trade—source of 70% of the world's cocoa. Since the Ivory Coast in West Africa alone produces 40% of the world's cocoa, its beans are mixed into almost every brand of mass-produced chocolate. Further, a handful of western corporations control approximately 85% of Ivorian cocoa exports. Yet, corporations of the global cocoa/chocolate trade - companies like Hershey's, Mars, Nestlé, Russell Stover, Cargill, and ADM - have done little to address this problem.
Most of the children come from Mali, Ivory Coast's poorer northern neighbor. Traffickers rely on the economic vulnerability of Malian families and entice naïve adolescents and teenagers with the promise of good jobs in the Ivory Coast.
Later, once over the border, and separated from their community or others who speak their language, the children are trafficked to cocoa farmers. Some farmers will pay the children a small sum at the end of the cocoa season. Some will not. But more importantly, some farmers will exploit the children's vulnerability, forcing them to perform long, hard and dangerous work, while providing only minimal food and shelter. Some will beat and threaten those who try to escape, and at night lock the children in sheds or huts. It is these children, held captive and forced to work against their will, that are the focus of this crisis.
Learn more here.
- Fairly traded from co-ops
We source our cacao exclusively from small-scale farmer co-ops in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Ecuador and Peru. The farmers own their land and control their livelihoods. As co-op members, together they choose how to invest Fair Trade premiums in their communities, such as installing wells for drinking water, a nursery for cacao plants, or a new school. For an industry traditionally rooted in exploitation – and a reliance on child slave labor – this is a big feat.
Most cocoa on the world market is bought "blind" through importers and brokers, but fairly traded cocoa is monitored - from the farmers to the store shelf - by independent, non-profit, certifying organizations that guarantee that the cocoa was produced and traded in a socially responsible manner, specifically that:
* International Labor Organization Conventions 29, 105 and 138 on child labor and forced labor are adhered to.
* the cocoa was bought directly from a democratically controlled co-operative of small scale farmers. This helps them to gain more control of their livelihoods and ensures farmers a higher percentage of cocoa export revenues.
- A worker-owned company
Equal Exchange is a worker-owned co-op, which means our worker-owners (full-time, permanent employees) have a stake in the business. From our highest paid employee, to the lowest paid employee, we each have an equal stake in the company. (There is also a 4:1 pay scale, meaning the highest paid employee cannot make more than four times the lowest paid employee). Collectively we own Equal Exchange and together we’re working toward a fairer trade model – and a better world.
|
| |
Products 
