The Dark Secret of the Chocolate Supply Chain

We cannot spare our students the dark secrets of supply chain management. As future decision makers, they need to understand the social and ecological consequences their decisions might have somewhere else on this planet. The chocolate supply chain is a perfect illustration of the complex relationships between consumerism, supply chain management, value creation, and ethical consequences. I have been using this example in my SCM courses for years. So, what is the impact of chocolate? The environmental group Mighty Earth has recently published an investigation into deforestation caused by chocolate: Chocolate’s Dark Secret. Their team visited several protected areas inside Ivory Coast and found that illegal cocoa production has entirely overtaken areas that had been covered by rain forests in the past. Particularly, they found that the world’s largest chocolate companies are connected to cocoa from sources linked to illegal deforestation. The report illustrates how cocoa moves through the supply chain and how value is created in the chocolate industry.