Red Pepper, January 1999 Pure self-indulgence it might be, but now you can rest assured that the chocolate you crave is not being produced at the expense of the farmers who grow the cocoa trees, say Robin Murray and Paulin Tiffin Divine is more than simply another bar of chocolate. It is an attempt to address who controls what is in the production chain of a commodity.
British people spend more on chocolate than they do on meat.
The UK coffee market is 800 million but chocolate alone is 3 billion a year. The traditional chain of producer, middleman, multinational which controls the brand, the retailer who controls what goes on the shelves, puts the cocoa farmers at a terrible disadvantage. Until now, cocoa farmers in West Africa have not had a chance of getting anything like their share of the chocolate cake. But ultimately the power and the money reside with the brand itself. The few companies that control the brands make the real profits.