The Case Against Cadbury

The case against Cadbury

Brought to the forefront of public agenda in 2001, credited to the broadcast of award winning documentary 'Slavery' (Edwards & Blewett, 2010) on the BBC, child labour within cocoa production is Cadbury's most scrutinised social performance. The roots of child labour can be boiled down to the low prices paid for cacao beans resulting in farmers recruiting cheap labour to keep production costs to a minimum (Cocoa Campaign n.d.). However not all stakeholders were effected negatively by the low cocoa prices. Cadbury has been able to employ over 46,000 people worldwide, (Factbox: British confectioner Cadbury), and keep it's chocolate prices relatively low for consumers. Ultimately this benefit was short lived as Cadbury was boycotted by consumers when it came to light that some of the world's most loved chocolate bars may have been produced at the expense of child slavery (Egan. 2007). Society had dictated to Cadbury that the negative externalities were not worth the low chocolate prices.

The cocoa farmers of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana have diminutive power against the much larger cocoa importers, which allowed Cadbury to pay rock-bottom prices for their produce. To highlight how little the farmers were getting paid, Egan (2007) claims that the price paid to farmers for a kilo of cocoa beans is less then what an Australian consumer pays for a Snickers bar. This unequal trading by Cadbury is not in line with the policies shown under their corporate governance guidelines in the Cadbury's code of conduct, (Our Business Principles. 2008.). The document states that it is their corporate and social responsibility to ensure ethical business practices including employment practices, human rights and ethical trading. The unfair price paid by Cadbury can not be seen as ethical trading and has had a dire impact on the West African community. This can still be seen through the direct link in child labourers used to keep production costs to a bear minimum on cocoa farms.

The children are the stakeholders most affected by Cadbury as they are forced from their homes to work for long hours without pay and are often beaten and deprived of food (Cocoa Campaign. n.d.). By 2003, the world's largest cocoa producing nation (The World Factbook: Cote d'Ivoire. 2010) harvested approximately '109,000 child labourers (working) in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms described as the worst form of child labour', (Country Reports on Human Rights and Practices. 2003). Of these 109,000 children 70% are estimated to be working with their parents on family owned farms and about 10,000 children are a combination of trafficked and domestic slaves. The children working on these farms are denied any education, enhancing the dependence on cocoa farming for the community and creating a vicious cycle.

Although Cadbury aim at sourcing their cocoa from Ghana rather then Cote d'Ivoire and have broken no international laws, their steps into rectifying the problem they helped create have been questionable. In 2001 the Chocolate Manufacturers Association (CMA) made a voluntary commitment to the Cocoa Industry Protocol (CIP) and certified their cocoa would be child labour free by July 2005 (Protocol for Growing and Processing of Cocoa Beans and Their Derivative Products. 2001.). The association includes many of the major players of the confectionary industry including M&M / Mars Inc., however Cadbury are not members and did not sign the CIP. As the deadline passed it became apparent that none of the major confectionary companies signed to the CIP were able to fulfil the promises made and the deadline was extended to 2008 and reduced to 50% of cocoa farms free from child labour. After 7 years the CMA and Cadbury still continued to reap the profits from child labour, raising thoughts that the CIP was agreed to in order to reduce the risk of government regulations (Campbell and Athreya. 2006). In this instance Cadbury can be seen as taking a passive approach towards the child labour campaign as the CIP suited Cadbury without themselves having to agree to any of the CIP terms.

More recently some of Cadbury's products have been labelled as 'Fair Trade Certified' which 'guarantee's