My sources for my List of Chocolate and Child-Slavery post

I got a question from someone who asked me my source of information for my last post re: slave-free chocolates in Australia.

I replied in the comments section there but thought, its probably best practice to do a proper post on it. So here is what I said (plus a bit more):

The source of my information are:

1st category (slave-free): Cameron from the Fairtrade Association of Australia and New Zealand (see link to their database on the right side of my blog) helped me compile that. A big thank you to Cameron.

2nd category (organic): A friend of mine directed me to the Organic standards websites of the ACO and NASAA pointing out that adherence to International law on labour standards was part of the certification process. So therefore, all chocolate that had ACO and NASAA got included. I separated them though because I could see from reading the standards that chemical-free was the main focus of the certification standard rather than human labour.

Endangered species is actually one of my favourite chocolates and I have been tracking their company record. I was eating Endangered species when they used to be fairtrade certified, but then they decided not to keep up the costs of independent audits and therefore lost their certification. See Endangered species website.

3rd and 4th part of the post (the slave chocolates), some friends and I wrote to every company on this list and I categorised them this way based on how I reacted to their response or non-response. I also went to their websites. You will find that most of those businesses will actually have something on their websites but buried in the detail. For example, Cadbury Schweppes have it in their website under their Corporate and Social Responsibility report (a pdf document).

Then for the last 2 categories, I also read up on the International Cocoa Initiative and criticisms of the International Cocoa Initiative. I also read up on what antislavery.org had to say about the situation.

I also then cross-referenced my list with http://vision.ucsd.edu/%7Ekbranson/stopchocolateslavery/main.html (mostly UK chocolates but some brands here in Australia) and also http://www.laborrights.org/files/COCOAVDayList.pdf (mostly US chocolates but again some brands here in Australia)

I hope people find this useful!