Global Trade: Investigating Chocolate

As we talk about where our STUFF comes from, it is important to understand global trade. Today we talked about the many countries and materials that go into making jeans, and we watched the video called The Story of Stuff to learn about the materials economy involved in getting stuff to us in the stores.

To further investigate global trade, we are looking at where one of our favourite sweets comes from — CHOCOLATE!

In groups of three, we are looking at different chocolate companies to answer the following questions:

  1. What is the name of the company?
  2. What is their most popular chocolate product?
  3. Which town and/or country did the company originate in?
  4. When did the company start making chocolate?
  5. Where does the company manufacture chocolate? Where are their factories?
  6. Where do they get their cocoa beans from to make the chocolate?
  7. What other main ingredients are used in their chocolate products?
  8. Where do they get those ingredients from?
  9. Where do they sell their chocolate?
  10. How many people do they employ?
  11. How much profit does the company make?
  12. What do they claim they do to be socially responsible as regards the welfare of either people or the environment? (Fair trade, employment protection, against child labour, green farming, etc.)
  13.  Any other interesting facts??

Record these facts in your journal together as a group of three. Our goal is to see which company is the most responsible AND to learn a little more about where our STUFF comes from.

Ms. D