Today Hershey’s is hosting its annual shareholders’ meeting in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Despite being the United States’ oldest and largest chocolate company, Hershey’s has refused to implement any policy to protect its workers, including children, or trace its cocoa. Virtually every other major global chocolate company has instituted some policy for tracing its cocoa, and in some cases, sourcing fair trade cocoa. With close over 4o% of the US chocolate market, the time has come for Hershey’s to source fair trade cocoa for its products.
In the lead up to Hershey’s shareholder meeting, a number of NGOs, children’s rights supporters and labor activists have mobilized to encourage Hershey’s to source fair trade cocoa. The Organic Consumers Association launched an online letter writing campaign that has generated over 5,000 letters to Hershey to date.
The Raise the Bar campaign has successfully mobilized thousands of consumers and activists to pressure Hershey’s to go fair trade and eliminate forced labor, human trafficking, and abusive child labor in their supply chain.
Raise the Bar also sponsored a “Brand Jam” for creative activists to jam the Hershey brand and expose its policies on human trafficking and child labor. See the winning submission below.
Go further! Read the Fair World Project’s article: Chocolate, the Bitter and the Sweet.