Are you planning to hand out chocolate this Halloween? Did you know that some well-known chocolate brands purchase their chocolate from farms and plantations that use child or slave labor? And some other brands choose to look the other way or don’t track their ingredient sourcing carefully.
Buying Fair Trade chocolate is a good way to support growers who are not using child or slave labor. Please look for the FairTrade certification on the labels of chocolate (and coffee and tea) to support companies that source their ingredients fom environmentally sustainable farms and compensate their growers fairly.
The UUCPA Action Council will not be selling Fair Trade chocolate this year, but you can buy your own to share for trick-or-treating. To make it easier, we have done some of the research for you.
You can look at the updated chocolate “score card,” which rates the parent companies of many chocolate brands on a host of issues such as traceability, child and forced labor, living wages, deforestation, and agricultural chemical management:
https://www.chocolatescorecard.com/scorecards
The scorecard contains a search function, which is helpful for finding the parent company of familiar brands. For instance, if you search for “Ghirardelli,” you’ll see that the parent company is “Lindt,” which has a mixed record on most issues.
Many large companies have improved their practices over prior years due to consumer attention and pressure. You can generally find some highly rated brands at your local Costco, Safeway, and Target stores (and you will definitely find some of them at Whole Foods), though not all companies sell chocolate in packages that are convenient for Halloween. In addition, below are links to several online stores where you can order individually wrapped Fair Trade chocolates, along with the approximate price per piece (ignoring shipping and taxes, which may be waived depending on order size). Chocolate prices are higher in recent years due to cacao shortages and now tariffs, but the products below are some of the less expensive fair-trade options we found that come in small portion sizes for Halloween:
Equal Exchange: This company sources their ingredients directly from worker co-ops. We have sold these at UUCPA in some past years. Unit price is $0.28 per piece.
Ocho: Unit price is $0.51 to $0.69 per piece, depending on variety. Unfortunately, it looks like the online ordering site is under construction, so they are not available online at this moment, but we have seen these at our local Target before, sometimes with better pricing.
Unreal: We found variety packs on sale at Target for $0.55 per piece, or you can find the dark chocolate minis online at Costco Online (for members) for $0.45 to $0.59/piece: https://www.costco.com/unreal-dark-chocolate-coconut-minis%2C-15.3-oz.product.100638275.html, https://www.costco.com/unreal-dark-chocolate%2C-variety-pack%2C-15.4-oz.product.4000313133.html. Last week, we found the Unreal dark chocolate coconut minis in-store at Costco for $0.38/piece–better than the online price!
Tony’s ChocoLonely: This is one of the highest-rated chocolate brands on the scorecard! Unit price is $0.50 per piece directly from Tony’s website: https://us.tonyschocolonely.com/products/variety-pack-tiny-tonys-pouch
You can also find them at Target for $0.46 per piece and some other online sites like Amazon for as low as $0.35 per piece: https://share.google/3GvvOqs7UhKxRymCH
Alter Eco: Unit price is $0.89 per piece at their website, or you can find similar pricing on Amazon:
Ritter Sport: This German company’s chocolates are available at several third-party websites. An affordable option for the mini size chocolates can be found at Amazon for $0.60 per piece.
If you would like to browse several other Fair Trade Certified brands and products at one site, you can visit:
However, most of these products come in larger sizes or packages that are less convenient for Halloween, but suitable for indulging yourself.
And lastly, the Natural Candy Store sells many natural Fair Trade candy brands, including some Fair Trade chocolate. This may be a useful site to browse and find out about some unique candy products:
Fair Trade Candies & Chocolates | Natural Candy Store
Of course, you can always give out something other than candy! However, if you choose to give chocolate or buy some for your own enjoyment, the Action Council urges you to purchase Fair Trade chocolate to support fair wages and avoid rewarding the abusive labor practices which are still common in the industry.
Thank you,
Action Council members Kristi Iverson (chair), Sally Ahnger, Edie Keating, Karen Skold, Sean Hansen, and Chris Cassell