"Big Chocolate" is a business term used to describe multi-national

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...

food producers, akin to the terms "

Big Oil Big Oil is a name sometimes used to describe the world's six or seven largest List of corporations by market capitalization#Publicly traded companies, publicly traded and investor-owned list of oil companies, oil and gas companies, also known ...

," " Big Pharma," and "

Big Tobacco Big Tobacco is a name used to refer to the largest companies in the tobacco industry. Overview According to the World Medical Journal, the five largest tobacco companies are: * Japan Tobacco International, based in Japan, Switzerland, and the ...

Definition

According to advocates of fair trade, such as

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

ian cooperative Kuapa Kokoo, "Big Chocolate" companies include Mondelez (which owns

Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (spun off from Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second-largest confectionery brand in the world, after Mars. ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

, and

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, often called just Hershey or Hershey's, is an American multinational corporation, multinational confectionery company headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World. T ...

. Together these companies process about 12% of the world's 3 million tons of cocoa each year. "Big Chocolate" also refers to the political and social consequences of the chocolate industry in general. Consolidated buying enables large cocoa users to wield significant impact in economies, many of them being poor African nations that rely on cocoa production as a critical element of foreign trade.

Miscellaneous

At the core of the chocolate debate across

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, parts of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, is the definition of chocolate itself, and whether percentages of cocoa in production should render some candies unable to carry the chocolate food definition. At issue is the ability to replace

cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible Vegetable oil, fat extracted from the cocoa bean (''Theobroma cacao''). It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter h ...

or dairy components of chocolate with cheaper

vegetable fat Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of edible plants. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, ...

s or

polyglycerol polyricinoleate Polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR), E476, is an emulsifier made from glycerol and fatty acids (usually from castor bean, but also from soybean oil). In chocolate, compound chocolate and similar coatings, PGPR is mainly used with another subst ...

(PGPR), thereby reducing the quantity of actual cocoa in the finished product while creating a less healthy confection. Currently the United States, some parts of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

do not allow vegetable fats as ingredients of products labeled as chocolate. The

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

allow vegetable fat as an ingredient. There are many ethical issues implicated in the chocolate industry, among them

child labor Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...

environmental impact Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans ( human impact on the environment) or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot reco ...

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

, and the extreme

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

of the average cocoa farmer. ''Food Technology'' reports over two million children working on cocoa farms in

and Cote d’Ivoire as a result of cocoa farmer poverty.

Definition

Miscellaneous

See also

References

Further reading