Chocolate Research Paper Essay

Chocolate is a key ingredient in many a(prenominal) foods such as milk shakes, contributedy nix, cookies and cereals. It is ranked as one of the just abtaboo favourite flavours in North the States and Europe. Despite its popularity roughly deal do non know the unique blood of this popular treat. Chocolate is a result that requires complex procedures to produce. The figure out involves croping burnt umber, refining coca to deep br own beans, and shipping the chocolate beans to the manucircumstanceuring factory for cleaning, coaching and grinding.These coffee beans im single-valued function then be imported or exported to other countries and be transformed into contrary types of chocolate products. deep brown beans go up in countries like Cote dIvoire, gold coast, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Malaysia, but the highest burnt umber producing country is Cote dIvoire. The fruit regale of umber beans include first, burnt umber is harvested manually. T he reference pods of drinking chocolate be collected and the beans atomic number 18 selected and placed in piles. These coffee beans ar then ready to be shipped to the fabricater for production.Cocoa grows in pods that sprout dour the trunks and branches of cocoa trees. The pods assimilate the fig and al intimately the size of football. The pods start out green and turn orange when they atomic number 18 ripe. When the pods argon ripe they argon harvested light with machetes. Machines fire damage the trees or the clusters of turn tailers and pods that grow on the trunk, so tapers ca-ca to harvest the pods by hand, using short, hooked blades mount on long poles to reach the highest fruit. The cocoa seeds then lowgo a execute of fermentation by placing them in whopping, shallow, alter trays or by c all overing them with large banana leaves.If the climate is right, they may be simply heated by the sun. Workers generally women charm under ones skin along peri odically and plump up them up so that all of the beans come out equally fermented. This process may take up to five or eight days. After fermentation, the cocoa seeds atomic number 18 dried before they can be scooped into sacks and shipped to chocolate manufacturers. Farmers simply spread the fermented seeds on trays and leave them in the sun to dry. The drying process usually takes rough a week and results in seeds becoming reduced to almost half of their original weight.During the production process, industry is not equally disjointd among men and women who work in the planation this brings us to the study of gender division. The gender divide that exists on the cocoa plantation is that most farm work is conducted by men, although most certainly there are tasks where women are genuinely active, such as scooping the beans from the already opened husks, turning the beans during the fermentation and drying process, and stitching the jute sacs needed for the packaging of t he dried beans. Women in the farms normally tend to the needs of the family.When womanish labor is hired during the harvesting sequence the wages given to them are not the same as those for men. Perhaps another(prenominal) reason why men are preferred is beca pulmonary tuberculosis of their assumed higher productiveness order compared to that of women. Due to different conventions followed in individual regions, even within countries, the engagement of women and their assigned tasks vary enormously. For instance, beca utilize of the popular rule of sun drying cocoa beans in Ecuador, it is required to clean the beans. This job is more often than not undertaken by women.This is not the case in gold coast or Brazil where sun drying is tumesce-bred while protecting the beans from foreign matters and waste. It is elicit to note however that there is no specific pattern for the assignment of tasks to women, move out during the harvest when the scooping of the beans from the op ened pods is primarily performed by women in most cocoa producing countries. ha pussuated the great differences in the systems of production in producing countries it is difficult to stupefy a common percentage that reflects the average participation of the egg-producing(prenominal) work force.It is worth mentioning that unlike the coffee bean agricultural firmament, there are no associations or specific groups that ho wont women simply involved in the cocoa sector at any level, although all associations and cooperatives are open to all who qualify. Due to fluctuation of cocoa scathes in the world commercialise, farmers have no long-term security, and in almost situations, they do not have luxuriant funds to support their farming business.Cocoa farmers are always faced with fiscal hardship they are not able-bodied to provide for their families as they would want nor have enough funds to start up their own farming business because they just now receive a fraction of t he harvest-tide from the selling of the beans on the world market and there are many people in the trading chain. Cocoa farmers some the world face many challenges. It is estimated that about one-third of global cocoa crops are destroyed by pests and diseases every year. umteen cocoa farmers have limited opening to the latest agricultural technologies or methods of glossiness and a few(prenominal) of them have business backgrounds to suffice them effectively market their products and manage their operations. some(prenominal) of the farming communities live in meagerness and are infected with diseases. Industry groups, establishments and consumers oecumenical have raised concerns about the use of pesticides and child labor on Hesperianmost African cocoa farms. An interview conducted by Christophe Koffi showed that one major(ip) problem that women in cocoa production encounter is the need the of financial capability or reinforcement due to the fact that most of these wom en find themselves in a male predominate occupation.It is very difficult for them to secure financial aid or loans to manage their farms. For instance, Women cannot get or even create a cocoa plantation under our patriarch-dominated tradition, state Vanie, criticising what she called a backwards and misogynist practice (Koffi, 2008) because we still live in a patriarchal dominated society where women do not have the right to own lands and properties. This paper further talks about the sustanability in the production process of cocoa.We allow be construeing at Lindt& Sprunglis which is a family company and a major producer of chocolate and other cocoa products with a headquaters in Kilchberg, Switzerland. Lindt & Sprungli is one of the few chocolate makers that have complete match over every step of the production chain starting with the precise endurance of the finest cocoa varieties from the best growing areas in the world right on by factor of the careful and expert proces sing until conclusion with the elegant packaging.Lindt gets its cocoa beans mostly from Ghana and Central and South America. Lindt has been very button-down in the amount of thrust its invests in the chocolate production process. Each be and future facility and investment undergoes very detailed analysis to determine how practically nada can be saved. done better insulation and energy recovery, Lindt & Sprungli was able to cut down on energy consumption by more than 13% per ton produced between 2004 and 2010.The company intends to run reducing the energy consumption rate per ton produced by an average over the coming years. According to the Lindt publication, The companys efforts since 1999, Lindt & Sprunglis Swiss marcher, Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli (Schweiz) AG, has been an active fellow member of the Lake Zurich Energy Model GroupThe Swiss government and independent engineers have audited the come up and as a result, the Swiss subsidiary has been granted the off icial certificate.(Kilchberg, 2012) Since 2007, Lindt & Sprungli under peeing conservation has been participating in the speed of light Disclosure Project (CDP)Since then, the measurements of urine emissions and energy consumption have been largely ground on the concept of the Methodology dodo Fuels set out in the CDP protocolWaste water, Lindt & Sprungli continuously monitors and analyses the use of water and the take of wastewater in the production process and intends to further reduce the use of fresh water in this process, which, in turn will impact the output of wastewater (Kilchberg, 2012).The major people that pull in from cocoa production are mostly the sizeable corporations. The corporations use cocoa farmers in the sense that they do not suffer them the true worth of their labour. Women who work on the farms are underpaid and marginalized. There is also the issue of child labor where children of coach deprivation age are forced to work on the farms instead of going to school thereby denying them the right to education. The big corporations are not forth coming in releasing information as to how and where they get their cocoa beans from.Most of these African countries where these big corporations get their raw materials from do not have access to good roads, wellness care facilities, schools, electricity, and there is poverty in most of the communities. These big corporations buy the cocoa beans at a very chinchy rate and then import them to the western society and the refined product is process into different kinds of chocolates (e. g. chocolate drink, chocolate bars of different shapes and sizes and chocolate candies etc. ) .Which are sold consumers at exorbitant prices considering the price at which the cocoa beans are bought from the cocoa farmers. This explains how capitalism and big corporation exploit cheap labour. Almost everyone enjoys a bit of chocolate every now and again. and if you take a closer look at how cocoa is produc ed, it may well leave a bitter tasting in your mouth.The conditions under which the cocoa farmers in many producer countries live and work are worrying Despite the fact that cocoa is usually their main blood line of income, the families struggle to make a spirit from it. Child labour is not uncommon. As consumers we can work with NGOs to find means of attentioning the farmers to adapt to new systems of cocoa farming that result higher yields, under amicablely more acceptable and milieually friendly conditions, to meet market demands and therefore ensure a stable flow income. As a major part of the global cocoa industry which has remained sleeping and invisible for so long, consumers of chocolate can demonstrate that they want slavery in the cocoa sector stamped out, and your pressure can highlight their lack of commitment and make them more accountable.Finally all cocoa products, including chocolate, run the risk of universe taint by child labour and slavery. To light upo n a satisfactory standard of good production in chocolate consumers must help to ensure that companies commit to conjectural and sufficient actions against such things as use of child labour and the exploitation of cocoa farmers and not make false and unsustainable promises to consumers of being slavery- free. The consumers can liaise with government bodies and NGOs to negotiate fair prices for the purchase of cocoa products and this will in turn help the farmers to gain access to basic social amenities of life. Reference Page archer, D. (2012).ADMs commitment to sustainable cocoa. Milwaukee Copyright 2012 Archer Daniels Midland Company . Clarkson, T. (1998). Anti-slavery. Retrieved November 15, 2012, from www. antislavery. org http//www. antislavery. org/english/privacy_policy. aspx Kilchberg. (2012, April 22). The environment in the Production Process.Retrieved November 13, 2012, from www. Lindt. com http//www. lindt. com/swf/eng/company/social-responsibility/lindts-sustainable -cocoa-supply-chain/ Koffi, C. (2008, November 7). pearl Coast women defy taboos. Retrieved November 11, 2012, from iol News http//www. iol. co. za/ intelligence/africa/ivory-coast-women-defy-taboos-1. 423405.