Mondelez Knows Production Processes Rely on Cocoa Farmers Using Child Labor, Lawsuit Alleges

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges Mondelez International has become one of the world’s largest snack food and chocolate companies in part by paying local cocoa farmers as little as $3 per day, which forces the farmers to use “child and child-slave labor,” while deceptively claiming on product packaging that it is socially and environmentally responsible. 

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The 30-page complaint alleges that Mondelez, whose brands include Chips Ahoy!, Clif Bar, Toblerone and Oreos, among many others, is aware that its production practices “perpetuate child labor and child slavery” yet claims on product packaging that its foods are “certified” or “100% sustainable,” or that the company “supports” or “helps” farmers, “when it knows the opposite is true.” 

“It is abhorrent to equate slavery and child labor to a ‘sustainable’ practice,” the lawsuit scathes, accusing Mondelez of “seek[ing] only the illusion of remediation [of child labor and environmental harm] while really doing nothing to remediate.” 

Further, the filing alleges Mondelez’s environmental practices “devastate the local environment” in that its supply chain has virtually no protection standards in place. To the contrary, the case says, the chocolate industry is responsible for massive deforestation in the Ivory Coast, where rainforests have been cleared for cocoa plantations, supposedly protected national parks have been occupied by villages and farmers, and environmental enforcement officials have taken kickbacks for turning a blind eye to infractions. 

According to the lawsuit, the “deceptive labeling” on Mondelez products has misled consumers into believing the items are sourced in accordance with environmentally and socially responsible standards. The plaintiff claims she and other consumers would not have purchased Mondelez products had they known the company’s packaging included misrepresentations as to its reliance on fair labor and environmental practices. 

“Mondelez cannot publicly claim that it adopts sustainable practices and that it is working to improve the lives of farmers when its unethical practices are in fact perpetuating a system that relies on and increases child and slave labor,” the complaint says. 

The lawsuit explains that the child labor and environmental degradation crises in Côte D’Ivoire are so widespread due, in part, to the nature of cocoa farms. Per the case, there are an estimated two million cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and most are small farms no larger than 10,000 square meters. 

The suit relays that the relatively small operation of these cocoa farms and their “fragmented presence” across the country allows for a system in which farmers sell to cooperatives or middlemen that collect the cocoa beans and gather them in warehouses. These intermediaries “collect beans across diverse farms in the cocoa belt, where no monitoring takes place, to sell to grinders or traders, and then to manufacturers such as Mondelez,” the lawsuit states. Per the suit, the disparity in power between these small farms and multinational corporations has resulted in farmers being paid as little as $3 per day. 

According to the suit, Mondelez falsely assures through its “Cocoa Life” program that the company is looking to “accelerate positive impact and help drive sector transformation” and that it is “working to help prevent and combat the risk of child labor.” The case argues, however, that this is no more than a method by which Mondelez can “claim to make progress while actually shirking accountability by placing responsibility for its own supply chain onto the cocoa growing communities, suppliers, and partners.” 

“Notably, Mondelez never claims that it does not use child labor,” the complaint states, adding that there is no way for Mondelez to trace whether the production of most of its cocoa involved child labor.  

Moreover, it is impossible to know from Mondelez’s child labor monitoring and remediation claims “how much, if at all, its efforts actually reduce child labor,” the case alleges. 

Similarly, the suit goes on, Mondelez’s production and purchasing methods in Côte D’Ivoire lack any environmental sustainability protocols and have actually had an adverse effect on the local ecosystem. 

“The rainforest in Côte D’Ivoire has decreased from 16 million hectares in 1960, making up half of the country, to less than 2 million hectares by 2010. Mondelez’s overproduction and indiscriminate purchasing in Côte D’Ivoire has contributed to this mass deforestation. An estimated 40 percent of the Ivorian cocoa harvest currently comes from inside classified or protected areas. This has devastating consequences for biodiversity and the local microclimate (including desertification and changing weather patterns).” 

The lawsuit looks to cover all United States residents who bought Mondelez products marked with the “Cocoa Life” seal, or as “sustainably sourced,” “100% sustainable,” “[improving] the lives of farmers,” or any other false sustainability claim within the last four years. 

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