"It’s Time to Change Chocolates" 

Rev. Bruce R. Russell-Jayne
I’m in trouble at home because of this sermon.  I always practice my sermon on Saturday by reading it to my wife Cece, and she did not want to hear what I am about to tell you.  A month ago, in our service on love, we celebrated Valentine’s with a chocolate communion.  Our children passed out Hershey’s kisses as a symbol of our love for each other.  I figured Hershey’s kisses would be perfect for our service; they are a quintessential American icon we all know and love.  I told you Cece lived in Hershey, Pennsylvania as a young girl, where the street lamps are shaped like kisses, and the heavenly smell from the chocolate factory fills the air.  Early in our marriage, I learned Cece’s love for chocolate was about more than just it’s taste.  Eating chocolate evokes deep emotions and a sense of connection to family and childhood.  For our anniversary this year, I gave her a Hershey’s kiss necklace.  But, now, what I am about to tell you is going to put our relationship in jeopardy - our relationship to Hershey’s that is.

Our relationship to food is a very broad and complex topic.  Our reading this morning comes out of the UU Association Congregational Study/Action Issue for 2008 thru 2012, which is Ethical Eating: Food & Environmental Justice.  We use the acronym CS/AI for Congregational Study/Action Issues. We can’t cover  all the issues in  the Ethical Eating CS/AI in one Sunday.  I had originally planned to preach today on the ethical treatment of animals in our food chain, but we have changed the schedule so that will come on Earth Day Sunday in April.  I apologize for the misleading blurb on the topic for this morning’s sermon.  Today, we are going to talk about another aspect of our food chain, the treatment of people whose labors provide nourishment for our bodies, and in the case of chocolate, nourishment for our souls.
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Hershey makes a lot of people happy.  It’s chocolate confections bring smiles to children’s faces, and the company has a good reputation.  According to the Hershey corporate website, founder Milton Hershey was “dedicated to improving lives; From the very beginning, community involvement and good corporate citizenship were integral to Hershey's business model…He built the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, including housing, parks, schools and a library...based on his belief that employees who could raise their families in a pleasant environment would live fuller lives and be better workers.  The Hershey Company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility is a direct reflection of our founder's life-affirming spirit.”

“In 1909 he and his wife Catherine, who shared a profound and deeply felt concern for the well-being of all children, especially those less fortunate, founded the Milton Hershey school for orphan boys.  Following the death of his wife, Mr. Hershey donated virtually his entire personal fortune to the school.  Today, Milton Hershey School is a coeducational home and school that provides a free world-class education, as well as meals, clothing, a nurturing home, healthcare, counseling and career training, to nearly 2,000 children in social and financial need.”   The Corporate statement of Commitment to Social Responsibility reads, “Building on Milton Hershey's legacy of commitment to consumers, community and children, we provide high-quality Hershey products while conducting our business in a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable manner.”

Hershey has done a lot of good, so it troubles me to have to tell you it is not living up to its commitment to social responsibility.  There is a campaign going on right now called “Raise the Bar Hershey” which is pressing Hershey to live up to its promises by taking a lead in cleaning up intolerable practices in the cocoa trade.  There is a documentary video called “The Dark Side of Chocolate,” which traces our chocolate candy back through the manufacturing supply chain to the source of the flavorful cocoa we love so much.  The documentary shows conditions in Ivory Coast, where much of the world’s cocoa is grown, and it uncovers the facts about how it is grown.  What we have learned is that children not only love to eat chocolate, children are laboring to produce it.

The video shows children working on cocoa farms.  Every day they are forced to carry extremely heavy loads, they are exposed to dangerous pesticides, and they are forced to work with dangerous machetes, resulting in serious injury.  These undernourished children are given no education which consigns them to a life of poverty.  What’s worse, is that many of these children are owned by the farming companies, sold into slavery by traffickers.   Yes, that’s right, slavery is alive and well today, and we are the beneficiaries, thru the cheap food we eat, of the broken lives of poor children in Africa.
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I condemn these disgraceful practices, but I won’t go on about them this morning.  I encourage us to learn more about them on our own.  What I want us to focus on this morning is what can be done to change the system which uses trafficked children working on cocoa farms.  One of the reasons Ethical Eating was chosen for UU congregations to study was so we could develop effective strategies to address one of the world's biggest problems: social inequality.   Food production around the world often involves abuses of human rights.
 
To understand why this is the case, we can look to the history of powerful countries colonizing poorer ones and using them for food production.  Today the practices of multinational corporations can have destructive impacts on the people of these same poor countries.  “If Unitarian Universalists seek to create a more equitable and just society, we need to understand how agriculture and food distribution relate to what we might term neo-colonialism, which is when a country’s economy, politics, or culture are largely directed by outside powers.
According to the Ethical Eating CS/AI Study Guide, due to market globalization, “Poor regions of the world have shifted from producing crops that support their self-sufficiency to “cash crops” valued by the dominant world economy, like cotton, tobacco, sugar, tea, rice, coffee, cocoa, bananas, pineapples, corn, soy beans, and livestock.  Combined with free market economics, this perpetuates dependent, inequitable relationships and a system of poverty, malnutrition and exploited labor.  Because indigenous and poor populations lack access to traditional hunting, gathering and farming lands, they no longer have access to their traditional food products and must resort to foreign diets, whose poor quality and highly processed nature lead to nutrition related diseases.”   In the case of cocoa production, it has led to malnourished children in slave labor.
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When US and multi-national corporations are confronted with human rights abuses in the countries where their goods are produced, their first response is to deny the abuse exists.   When asked about the issue of child labor, many members of the chocolate industry continue to claim they don’t know anything about it.
If they do admit to knowing about it, they shirk responsibility saying they can’t solve all of the problems of these poorer countries.  They claim they are improving the lives of the workers by giving them jobs and claim credit for providing support for improvements to local communities.  Their efforts usually aren’t enough to significantly improve people’s lives, but in the case of cocoa production there is a proven way to do that.  That way is Fair Trade.  There are a number of small chocolate companies who have built relationships with cocoa farmers and pay them an equitable price for their products so they earn enough to support their families and send their children to school.  Fair Trade practices have been with us for several years now, and there are independent organizations which certify that companies are meeting labor and environmental standards.  It has been proven to work.  At Northern Hills, we buy Fair Trade coffee from the UU Service Committee and sell it every Sunday in the Quimby Room. 

By participating in the Fair Trade system Hershey would be paying farmers enough so that they can afford to hire adult workers and send their children to school.   Although Hershey and other major chocolate companies have stated their commitment to buying cocoa beans through Fair Trade Certified suppliers and improving conditions for workers for over ten years now, Hershey lags far behind many of its competitors in actually doing so.  According to the “Raise the Bar Hershey” campaign website, “ Hershey has no policies in place to purchase cocoa that has been produced without the use of labor exploitation, and the company has consistently refused to provide public information about its cocoa sources.  Additionally, Hershey has made no move to shift to third-party certification for the cocoa it sources from West Africa.  No information is available from Hershey about how the money it has invested in various programs in West Africa has actually impacted reductions in forced, trafficked and child labor among the suppliers of its cocoa.”

“Field to Fork” is the name of a UU Service Committee human rights campaign designed to raise awareness and mobilize UUs in support of workers upon whom we depend daily for our food.  Won’t you check out the UUSC website to learn more about justice for food workers?  For years the UUSC Coffee Project has been promoting trade justice for the developing world as a truly significant way to help end global poverty.  Fair Trade is a set of principles and practices that more equitably distributes wealth and provides producers and farmers with a living wage.  It mandates regular inspections by independent certifiers, and ensures products can be traceable to the farm level so that individual farmers know that they can be identified and expelled from the Fair Trade system if they violate the rules.  Small-scale producers and farmers organize into co-operatives that are democratically governed, collective enterprises based on equity, sustainability, and self-sufficiency.  Forming co-ops gives them access to affordable credit, long-term fair trade relationships, and the opportunity to make investments in their local communities.”

“The UUSC Coffee Project is a collaboration between UUSC and Equal Exchange, a worker-owned, fair trade company.  Through the Coffee Project, UUs buy fair trade coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate bars, and other tasty treats in bulk.  Equal Exchange sources these goods directly from farmer cooperatives, following the standards and principles of fair trade on 100 percent of its products.  This ensures that farmers earn a fair price for their crops, allowing them to better meet their families' basic needs for food, education, and health care — and their long-term security.”

“Equal Exchange and other small chocolate companies have been building relationships with cocoa farmers for years.  They are setting a higher standard for corporate responsibility and showing it is possible for chocolate companies to work to end child labor and forced labor by purchasing Fair Trade certified cocoa beans... Major cocoa purchasers like Cadbury, Green & Black’s, Nestlé, and Ben & Jerry’s have all made significant commitments to increase their purchases of Fair Trade Certified cocoa, showing that a solution is possible TODAY.  Ben & Jerry’s not only agreed to achieve Fair Trade certification for its cocoa, but also for all of its other ingredients that are eligible for Fair Trade Certification by 2013.”   It is time for Hershey to do the same.
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Together, we can make a difference to the children of western Africa.  By buying Fair Trade certified cocoa and other products we can help eliminate the use of forced child labor and slavery.  Look for products that mention Fair Trade on their labels.  We can also put pressure on Hershey to buy cocoa that is grown under Fair Trade standards so once again all of us can be proud of this iconic American company.