Skip to content
Can chocolate be clean? episode artwork

Dec 12, 2019 26 min

Can chocolate be clean?

from The Food Chain Hosted by BBC World Service

The bittersweet world of chocolate is complex - cocoa beans are produced by some of the poorest people on the planet and turned into chocolate for some of the richest, and the sweet stuff is haunted by child labour, slavery, trafficking and deforestation. But could the rise of artisan chocolatiers change this? We speak to three people who are putting traceability and sustainability at the heart of their chocolate businesses, and find out just how difficult that can be - still today, there is no guarantee your chocolate bar is free from the industry's ills. One of our entrepreneurs, in Ghana, tells us about her determination to put one of the world’s biggest cocoa producers on the chocolate map, and a chocolatier in Singapore explains why she gave up a career in banking to make chocolate bonbons. Plus, we ask whether consumers are willing to pay a relatively high price for bar that's been more ethically sourced. We also get up close with a cocoa pod, find out what 'bean to bar' really means, and discover the science behind how chocolate is actually made. (Picture: A chocolatier making a chocolate truffle. Credit: Getty/BBC)

Episode details come from the podcast's RSS feed.

Embed this episode

Ready to play

Can chocolate be clean?

0:00 26:05

No transcript yet.

Requests help us decide what to transcribe next.

Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of The Food Chain?

This episode is 26 minutes long.

When was this The Food Chain episode published?

This episode was published on December 12, 2019.

Can I download this The Food Chain episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.