I got to go trick or treating early this year, courtesy of someone nice who did the shopping. My Halloween chocolate consisted of Trader Joes Fair Trade Belgian Chocolate. Tastes heavenly and doesn’t contribute to slavery. Be an abolitionist and buy Fair Trade products!
Global Exchange has 31 creative ideas to celebrate a Fair Trade October.
Here are a couple I like:
Buying Fair Trade items helps prevent slavery by supporting sustainable markets for vulnerable people in developing economies. It also helps fight slavery by sending a message to companies that don’t support Fair Trade, giving them a business incentive to support sustainable markets.
When I buy chocolate and other candy from Hershey, MARS, and Nestle today, those companies can’t assure me that my products weren’t grown, harvested, distributed, and even manufactured by slaves and child labor. I used to love M&M’s, but they don’t taste as good to me when I picture a slave picking the cocoa for CEO Paul Michaels at Mars.
I’m glad to hear that Hershey has responded to pressure from the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign, and announced that they are committing to be 100% Fair Trade by 2020. While that’s better than NOT committing to becoming Fair Trade at all, it’s still 7 years away. I guess if Hershey is asking the farmers and laborers to wait 7 years for Fair Trade practices, then Hershey can wait 7 years for me to buy their products. In the meantime, I’m keeping an eye on Nestle and Mars to follow suit, and I’ll keep buying chocolate and coffee that are Fair Trade now.
What is your reaction? How do you decide which candy, costume, or products to buy for Halloween? Click here to leave a comment, or click on the bubble next to the title of the post.
At our extended family Christmas gathering, we exchanged a lot of chocolate that was fair trade and/or equal exchange. And delicious! My nephew put Organic Dark Chocolate and Caramel Crunch in my stocking. I loved it. Someone else got Divine Dark Chocolate (which can also be ordered on Amazon by the way) amid many oohs and aahs. And I was delighted to find Green & Black’s Dark Chocolate at my local Walgreen’s Drug Store to give to my brother. If you enjoy gourmet chocolate, and especially if you like to buy organic and Fair Trade Certified products, I hope you’ll get a chance to try any of these, because our family loved them!
Human Trafficking 
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