Cocoa substitutes hit Third World growers

Press, 15 October 1982, Page 16

Cocoa substitutes hit Third World growers

By

RICHARD HALL,

in London

Chocolate manufacturers have been accused of “immoral” policies for using cocoa substitutes at a time when Third World growers, hit by the world slump, are having to sell their crops at a loss. The charge is made by Kwesi Hackman, . retiring director of the 45-nation International Cocoa Organisation. Cocoa butter, a basic ingredient of chocolate, can be partly replaced by vegetable fats. Makers say their substitutes do not affect the taste, although they can give a waxy texture. "The genuine article is in good supply and very cheap, and substitutes only further indirectly depress the price,” Mr Hackman says. Cocoa costs about $l7OO a tonne, its lowest price in real terms for 20 years; allowing for inflation, today’s level is less than a fifth of the peak price in 1977. . Nine-tenths of cocoa beans grown are used in chocolate confectionery. American and British firms set the pace with lower-cost substitutes when prices were high. Now the substitutes are estimated to relace annually the equivalent of more than 150,000 tonnes of beans. Although, there is no longer a real price advantage, manufacturers are sticking to the substitutes.

Vegetable fats, often called “extenders”, may. replace up to 15 per cent of the traditonal cocoa content in the bars we

buy, although in much of Europe it is illegal to use the word “chocolate” on a label when substitutes are used.

“For years, British chocolate manufacturers have been trying to make the E.E.C. accept substitutes,” says Mr Hackman, a 53-year-old economist. He returned to Ghana last week after having been head of the London-based cocoa organisation since 1973.

Several West African countries still depend heavily on cocoa, introduced as a cash crop in colonial times. It is also exported from South American and South-East Asia.

Chocolate trends in Europe and America contain a bitter message for thousands of these tropical farmers. In spite of the recession, the British are eating more chocolate than ever — 360,000 tonnes a year — but steadily importing less cocoa. In 1966, according to a recent study, Britain consumed 340,000 tonnes of chocolate and imported 142,000 tonnes of cocoa. Now; with a higher chocolate consumption, Britain imports only 92,000 tonnes of cocoa a year. This decline is more marked in Britain than in other countries.

Easily the world’s biggest cocoa consumers per capita are the Swiss (3.8 kgm a year) followed by the Austrians and Norwegians. The British and Americans are a long way down the list.

In Britain one reason, apart from substitutes, is the swing away from “dark” chocolate. This contains about 34 per cent cocoa (although some Continental varieties are as high as 50 per cent), whereas milk chocolate has only 20 per cent cocoa. British manufacturers say they have “rationalised” the types of plain chocolate on sale; this means, in effect, the choice is minimal. Nowadays the sale of plain chocolate, held to be rather old-fashioned, has slipped to less than 1 per cent of the total.

An even bigger factor has been the public switch of allegiance — encouraged by marketing strategies — to “filled bars” such as Mars. These are at least 60 per cent sugar and contain far less cocoa even than milk chocolate.

Britain has also been pressing, through the E.E.C. for the minimum cocoa content of filled chocolate bars to be reduced. Some United States firms now make bars with synthetic “chocolate flavouring” containing no cocoa at all.

Suggestions for an international campaign to promote cocoa as a foodstuff have been coolly recieved in the main consuming countries. Even the traditional idea that it is a mild sexual stimulant gets short shrift. — Copyright, London Observer Service.