By Dr Catriona Nguyen-Robertson MRSV
Senior Editor, Science Victoria

Chocolate is one of the most popular sweets around the world – 8.13 million tonnes of it are consumed annually.¹ The global chocolate industry is worth over $177 billion AUD,² but we don’t often think about the cost of our favourite treat beyond its price in a shop.

Thousands of local students have participated in variations of the Ballarat Tech School’s chocolate programs. The students goal in the program is to develop more innovative and sustainable chocolate product alternatives. The program has evolved since the Tech School opened in 2018, and more recent iterations combine indigenous bushfoods and chocolate to create a more sustainable and uniquely Australian alternative. 

The bitter taste of the chocolate industry

With so many people consuming chocolate around the world, “Big Chocolate” makes big money…while failing to pay a living income to cocoa farmers.^3,4

Raw cocoa is derived from the seed pod of the cocoa tree, grown mostly in tropical areas of Africa (70%) and South America. Cocoa farmers in those areas do physical labour in harsh heat and humidity with no shade. They are also exposed to high levels of toxic chemicals in pesticides due to overuse on crops, which can sometimes be old and diseased. Yet their compensation is, on average, less than $2 per day.³ Farmers only receive about 6% of each chocolate bar’s sale price, while manufacturers and retailers keep 80%.⁴

Additionally, despite calls for change, child labour remains prevalent in the industry: over 1.5 million children still work on cocoa plantations, where they are vulnerable to trafficking, slavery, and other violent labour practices.⁵ Many of these children do not receive an education while they work.⁶ Without an education, these children have little hope of breaking the cycle of poverty.

Deforestation is occurring at a rapid rate as farmers clear forests to make room for cacao plantations. In West Africa, where two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is produced, the illegal clearing of tropical rainforests has accelerated in the past decade. West Africa has lost more than 85% of its forest in the past 60 years, mostly due to cocoa farming.⁷ Soil erosion, caused as a direct result of deforestation, renders the land less fertile for cacao plants, creating a vicious cycle of more land clearing for minimal return.

In addition to the environmental problems caused by the farming of cocoa, single use plastic packaging in the food industry creates a great pollution problem. Most chocolate products are packaged in some form of plastic, and while there are biodegradable alternative packaging products being developed, companies are slow to take them up as they are more expensive.

Chocolate manufacturers are beginning to make changes to their cocoa purchasing requirements, which are designed to support producers to grow more sustainably and reduce child labour. Consumer demand for more ethical and sustainable chocolate products can influence the manufacturing company’s raw material choices.

80% cocoa, 100% design thinking

Local secondary school students come year after year to participate in a program at Ballarat Tech School, where they design and produce their own local, sustainable, and ethical chocolate.

Student teams produce and market their own chocolate product. In the program’s initial run, students were assigned roles within their teams  as tech specialists, food specialists, and materials specialists. While each of the specialists worked on individual tasks throughout the day, they had numerous team meetings to discuss their progress and research findings to make collaborative decisions.

The tech specialists designed and engineered chocolate moulds from scratch using 3D-printing. The food specialists learned about the chocolate production process and used Thermomixers to make chocolate from its constituent parts, including mixing in their flavours of choice. Meanwhile, the materials specialists investigated types of packaging materials, and made and tested the quality of different bioplastics to produce a biodegradable chocolate box prototype.

More recent iterations of the program include an opportunity to explore indigenous ingredients (such as Lemon Myrtle, Pepper Berry, and Wattleseed). The Ballarat Tech School is located on the lands of the Wadawurrung People, and the program pays homage to their rich history and knowledge of native botanicals and their use in food. To celebrate NAIDOC Week recently, the Tech School teamed up with Wadawurrung’s Aunty Deb Rose, Gunditjmara woman, Renee Bosworth, and two local businesses to run “The Great Bushfood Brownie Bake-off”.

Incorporating native plant-based foods and traditional food practices into current foods has the potential to be more sustainable and reduce instances of diet-related chronic health conditions like obesity.⁸ They have a high nutrient content and high tolerance to environmental stress compared to Western food, and First Peoples have used sustainable approaches to grow and prepare food for millenia.⁸

Throughout the program, the students drive the project and take leadership of their work, while the Ballarat Tech School staff provide support. The focus of the program is teamwork, as one person would not be able to complete the task alone. Students are also encouraged to create designed solutions, evaluate ethical issues, and use logical, strategic, flexible and adventurous thinking together.

The Bushfood Chocolate Program at Ballarat Tech School provides an “applied taste test” of the technologies and processes behind producing chocolate commercially. Students are challenged to identify their strengths, take on new technical skills, and collaborate to bring the project all together. “Chocolate is really a vehicle to do all this with,” says Kirstyn Hall, who developed the program.

Chocolate does not have to come at a steep human and environmental cost. Students are encouraged to consider and even promote the importance of buying ethically produced chocolate that does not exploit cocoa farmers or support child labour. They are also encouraged to think about the sustainability of all food packaging, and how they can incorporate unique Australian flavours into food. They then apply the technical skills they learn to design, produce and market a sustainable, ethical product – and have a chocolatey treat to munch on at the end of the day.

References:

1. RationalStat. (2022, September 20). Chocolate Consumption Per Year by Country. rationalstat.com/chocolate-consumption-per-year
   
2. Grand View Research. (2024). Global Chocolate Market Size & Outlook, 2023-2030. grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/chocolate-market
   
3. Fairtrade Foundation. (2020, November 18). More Dough for Cocoa Farmers. fairtrade.net/news/more-dough-for-cocoa-farmers
   
4. Fairtrade Foundation. (2022). Cocoa farmers. fairtrade.org.uk/farmers-and-workers/cocoa
   
5. Bureau of International Labor Affairs. (2020). Child Labor in the Production of Cocoa. U.S. Department of Labor. dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/child-labor-cocoa
   
6. Food Empowerment Project. (2022). Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry. foodispower.org/human-labor-slavery/slavery-chocolate
   
7. Aboa, A. (2021, February 19). Ivory Coast lost 47,000 hectares of forest to cocoa production in 2020, environmental group says. Reuters. reuters.com/article/uk-cocoa-ivorycoast-deforestation-idUSKBN2AJ0T6
   
8. Lopes, C. V. A., et al. (2023). Aboriginal Food Practices and Australian Native Plant-Based Foods: A Step toward Sustainable Food Systems. Sustainability, 15(15), 11569. doi.org/10.3390/su151511569