|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Hershey's not only Tastes like Hell
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
They fully belong in Hell. First, for likely using chocolate provided by child and slave labour. 2nd for promising to fix it in seven years! Seven fucking years. They need not change one piece of equipment. How can a switch possibly need 7 years?
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
|
Posted
I knew there was a reason Hershey tastes like crap.
Seriously, 7 years to find fair trade suppliers? For cocoa beans?
Heck, there's so much good, fair trade coffee beans around nowadays that it seems to have overtaken Maxwell House. I don't think it took seven years to change, either.
It takes a change of attitude, though. Possibly assisted by a large dip in sales.
--------------------
Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
|
Posted
They didn't even need to find a Fair Trade supplier. Just one that meets international labour standards, a much lower barrier.
--------------------
Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
|
Posted
Hershey has been a clusterfuck for years. Witness their ownership structure.
--------------------
NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
I know and buy from several companies on that list. The majority of my chocolate bar purchases are New World, fair trade, single origin or the like. A little more difficult are truffles, bon bons, chocolate in desserts in restaurants, at the market..... Takes more inquiry.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
|
Posted
I think we're all missing the point. Hershey's doesn't need to find fair trade—or, Hell, even just fair—suppliers. They could make them. If they told their suppliers that living wages were to be paid Or Else, people would be falling over one another to do it. It'd cost what, 2-3¢ extra a chocolate bar? I wouldn't notice it, but someone on a plantation somewhere sure would.
And yet, because charging not even an extra nickel would just kill their sales, people are being exploited.
It's things like this that make me wish that there were still job openings for the position of Old Testament prophet.
[ 02. November 2012, 03:33: Message edited by: Ariston ]
--------------------
“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
It's things like this that make me wish that there were still job openings for the position of Old Testament prophet.
You have the the donkey...
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
|
Posted
It's not just chocolate. In the wake of globalization, practically everything we buy comes with a pretty hefty moral price tag.
--------------------
Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
Information is power. The market changes only when people actually find out about these things and put some kind of value on getting better products.
'Better' covers a range of considerations. I buy free range eggs, acknowledging they cost just a little more. But part of the reason I do that is because legislation here has made it incredibly easy to SEE which eggs are free range and which are cage. They're clearly labelled on the supermarket shelves. And one of our largest supermarkets has ended up swinging from 'mostly cage' to 'mostly free range' because, when the information is easy to access, more and more of their customers picked free range.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
|
Posted
And chocolate's only the beginning. Let's start with tomatoes, shall we? Yes, I know the story's over three years old, but you can find—tragically—less in-depth ones that say about the same thing from September. Is it possible to eat anymore without starving someone else?
Look. I ain't rich. I might argue on less happy nights (which aren't unfrequent) that little ol' pre-professional Master of frikkin' Arts me hasn't been treated that well by today's labor standards. But I'm in a place where, much as it may be soul-crushing, I can spend over a year working without pay in the hopes of landing a $30,000 a year job in New York. Because the government isn't really hiring, I can't really find good work here; the oil companies back home don't want me, and honestly, I read one too many books on ethics to be a good financier. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm kinda in a bad place.
And it's nothing compared to what's happening to other people.
Like most people, I'd be willing to pay the three extra cents a pound for my produce to end slavery in the States, but that's supposedly not a viable commercial option. Your choices are either slave-harvested food for something I can make an excuse to try to afford this week, or perhaps ethically grown, organic, nice, and "clean" heirloom vegetables with all the labels that say as much that cost more per pound than I spend on lunch each week.
This dichotomy shouldn't exist. The price of paying people enough to eat is so low for the consumer that, in the end, there's no excuse for it not being universal; justice is more than a sign for the produce aisle.
--------------------
“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Seven fucking years. They need not change one piece of equipment. How can a switch possibly need 7 years?
Simple - they don't want to switch. They don't care about anything except profits. Promises by big business are like 'reviews' and 'inquiries' - they mean nothing.
It'd help if we all woke up to the fact and stopped being taken in by them.
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
We, the consumers, have to force business to change. Food can be safe and ethical without hurting poor consumers. It is not about cost per unit, it is about profit per unit. Those pennies per translate into millions, even billions, cumulative.
The injustices are many, the road difficult. We must kick business in the wallet and slap our legislators about the head until they relent. Ariston's dilemma need not exist.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
It's not just Hershey. If you want chocolate that was not produced using child slaves, you need to buy fair trade, organic, or New World chocolate.
Or buy it from a maker listed here.
That site warns against buying any chocolate from Ghana. In fact West Africa in general. That is not good advice. Ivory Coast maybe, and some other countries, but Ghana is not at all in the same position as almost all of its cocoa is produced by small farmers and co-operatives, which is a vast improvement on the large plantation farms used in many other countries. No real advantage in buying organic if the organic farms are run by some faceless multinational company on land stolen from poor peasants.
If you want to get the best of both worlds buy Divine brand chocolate - which is on their list despite being West African - fair trade chocolate from small farmers in Ghana who have a say in the company that sells the stuff here, so its not just EuroAmerican money parachuted into a poor country and taking over.
Also in the unlikely event that you find any cocoa from Nigeria (Nigeria doesn't produce much because its not profitable for them) its probably ethically OK - unlike Nigerian oil, but I bet you don;t worry about that when you fill up your tank and help to destroy the Niger Delta and so pay for murder and oppression of millions of people in the oil states. Not to mention wrecking rain forests in Africa and South America.
Same goes for tea and coffee incidentally - East African coffee in general is liklely to be grown by independent small farmers, South and Central American coffee, and Indian tea, much more liekly on large plantations with all the exploitation that implies.
[ 02. November 2012, 17:14: Message edited by: ken ]
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
I do worry about such things. Be fair, ken, not sure many people are aware of sub-Saharan oil. Much harder to control as you cannot differentiate by purchase as you can with chocolate. Again, slap the governments about the head.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
Sorry to double post, but I think effort is the biggest issue.
The amount of exploitation and the effort involved in change quickly overwhelm and people throw in the towel.
When I read the Hershey's article, I originally intended to post more generally in Purg, title "At what Price our Pleasures?"
But I had done a similar in the past. The general reaction was a pat on the head, an "Oh well, what can one do? Cannot police the world, not our job. There's a good lilBuddha, now run off and play."
So, I decided to post a single, clear issue here. Issue is the same for everything one buys, though.
[ 02. November 2012, 17:34: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
kankucho
Shipmate
# 14318
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
I knew there was a reason Hershey tastes like crap.
Google 'Hersheys tastes like vomit' and you'll find a unanimity of international opinion the like of which the UN can only dream about ('international' as in that bit of the world which doesn't take part in the World Series).
As to why: this Wiki paragraph subjectively explains...
quote:
The Hershey Process milk chocolate used in these bars is cheaper to make than other types of chocolate as it is less sensitive to the freshness of the milk. The process was developed by Milton Hershey and was the first mass-produced chocolate in the United States. As a result, the Hershey flavor is widely recognized in the United States and Canada, but less so internationally, in particular in areas where European chocolates are more widely available. The process is a trade secret, but experts speculate that the milk is partially lipolyzed, producing butyric acid, which stabilizes the milk from further fermentation. This compound gives the product a particular sour, "tangy" taste, to which the US public has become accustomed, to the point that other manufacturers often add butyric acid to their milk chocolates.
--------------------
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
Posts: 1262 | From: Kuon-ganjo, E17 | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
hilaryg
Shipmate
# 11690
|
Posted
Yes - and butyric acid is also found in vomit and parmesan cheese.
I think its interesting that some manufacturers have taken to adding buytric acid to their chocolate as US consumers think that's what chocolate should taste like...
Posts: 261 | From: back home in England | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
|
Posted
I always wondered why one Hershey's Kiss was enough for me. I love chocolate, but detested Hershey's when I tried it. It's just starting to become more widely available in Oz; but now there's even more reason not to like it, it seems.
The local markets seem to sell a lot of cheap European chocolates - the last lot I tried came from Poland - lovely chocolate, but I cannot imagine they would be at all pro-active in sourcing cocoa in a pc way. Hard to tell, tho, as the label was written in Polish.
--------------------
Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif){kind=icon}
