Confession: I am a chocoholic. Because I am a chocoholic and have fond memories of peanut butter cups and other chocolaty delights in my childhood Halloween pail, I like to give out chocolate to trick-or-treaters. The fact that I find the leftover candy enjoyable may have something to do with my choice, as well.
There’s an unfortunate problem in all of this: More than 40 percent of the world’s cocoa beans are grown in West Africa, and many West African cocoa plantations, particularly those in Ivory Coast, use child slaves.
I’m not comfortable with that. Especially not when chocolate is a luxury good (much as I’d love to call it a necessity).
Since I can’t ignore the problem, I’m left with two options: (1) Don’t give out chocolate candy on Halloween. (2) Pay more for fairly traded chocolate. I’ve chosen the latter option, because, well… chocolate.
I use the term “fairly traded” instead of fair-trade, because there is more than one possible certification for products that are supposed to meet certain social and ecological standards, including fair labor practices. Certifications are by no means perfect, but they do signal a commitment — on the parts of both the company that pursues certification and the consumer who seeks out certified products — to business practices that are fairer and more sustainable.
When I first set out to buy Halloween chocolate from a company committed to fair labor practices, I found packages of Endangered Species Bug Bites at Whole Foods. They were perfect — small, but not too small. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen bulk quantities of that candy in stores since then. You can buy them online in milk or dark chocolate.
For the next year or two, I could only find bulk quantities of small, fairly traded chocolate online. I like to buy the Equal Exchange Halloween kit, because it includes coupons for chocolate that I can hand out; I usually give them to parents who are with their young trick-or-treaters, and I end up with several that I can leave out at work after Halloween. The downside to these minis is that they are really, really small. If you give out just one or even two to your trick-or-treaters, you’ll seem stingy.
Divine Chocolate also offers extremely small minis in bulk quantities. Again, you can buy them in milk or dark chocolate. I like to buy some of their larger 1.5 oz. bars, which I give to the older trick-or-treaters. Perhaps it isn’t fair of me, but I think the little kids won’t appreciate them as much.
Last year I found bulk packages of full-sized, individually wrapped Justin’s peanut butter cups at Target. This year they no longer have those, but they do have packages of mini peanut butter cups in milk or dark chocolate, which I also found at Whole Foods.
Yes, your selection is limited, it’s expensive, and most of it needs to be purchased online. But if you are a chocolate-lover and want to buy fairly traded chocolate for Halloween, it’s good to know you have options.