The Chocolate Challenge Manifesto - Yum!

A 'chocolate challenge' manifesto would sound like a list of election pledges to eat as much chocolate as possible, or as many different types, or something like that...

But the Day Chocolate Company, which make Divine chocolate and Dubble bars, have launched a new campaign urging people to sign up to their chocolate challenge manifesto as a sign of support for giving cocoa farmers in the developing world a better deal for their product. Signatures and the manifesto will be presented to the big chocolate companies and supermarkets during Fairtrade Fortnight, which begins at the end of February - and the goal is to have 100,000 names on that petition!

The Day Chocolate Company is part-owned by the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative, which is a group of Ghanaian cocoa farmers, which means that profits from Divine and Dubble are directly returned to them. The majority of cocoa farmers across the developing world, however, aren't so lucky to recieve a price that they can live on, yet chocolate confectionary companies are making ever-bigger profits. Surely some of that can be returned to the cocoa farmer so that their families aren't struggling to survive? Where's the fairness in the current trading relationship? That's the underlying message behind the chocolate challenge manifesto.