Big Chocolate

"Big Chocolate" is a business term assigned to multi-national chocolate food producers, akin to the terms "Big Oil," "Big Pharma," and "Big Tobacco". Definition According to self-described fair trade proponents including Ghanaian cooperative Kuapa Kokoo, "Big Chocolate" companies are Mondelez (which owns Cadbury), Mars, Nestlé, and The Hershey Company. Together these companies process about 12% of the world's 3 million tons of cocoa each year. "Big Chocolate" also refers to the political and social effects of a unifying industry. Consolidated buying enables large cocoa users to wield significant impact in economies, many of them poor African nations, that rely on cocoa production as a critical element of foreign trade. Miscellaneous At the core of the chocolate debate across Europe, parts of Asia and the United States is the definition of chocolate itself, and whether percentages of cocoa in production should render some candies unable to carry the chocolate food definition.