Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) is excited to announce that on October 27, 2021 we filed suit against Hershey and the certification scheme Rainforest Alliance in a consumer protection case in Washington, D.C. Superior Court. CAL, as the plaintiff in the case, is suing the defendants -- Hershey and Rainforest Alliance -- for false and deceptive marketing representations on certain Hershey chocolate products. We are bringing suit under the Washington, D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act (“CPPA”), a consumer protection statute that allows public interest organizations like CAL to sue on behalf of the general public.
The West African cocoa industry continues to suffer from endemic issues of child labor, forced child labor, and farmer poverty -- a result of low prices that wealthy multinational companies pay for cocoa. Meanwhile, social auditing and certification schemes like Rainforest Alliance, which purport to help farmers produce cocoa “sustainably,” are failing them. Over the past year, CAL’s investigators have documented instances of hazardous child labor on Rainforest Alliance certified farms in different parts of Cote d’Ivoire and spoken with farmers who explain that they don’t earn enough from cocoa farming to support their families. As one father explained, “They tell us that children are not supposed to work but they are the ones who help me feed the family. Children work in the plantations because the cooperatives and companies treat us so badly that we need to make children work on the plantations.”
Although a consumer protection action may not be a traditional form of human rights litigation, we think it’s vital to shed light on issues of child labor and exploitative working conditions in the West African cocoa industry using every available tool. Hershey benefits financially from cheap cocoa supplies, while Rainforest Alliance distracts from the real issues in Hershey’s supply chain by putting their seal on products. Not only are consumers who want to buy ethically produced cocoa misled by Rainforest Alliance’s seal, these labels also allow companies to avoid liability for their role in perpetuating human rights violations in cocoa supply chains.
To learn more about the case, you can read the complaint here and a press release here. You can also read this blog describing incidences of hazardous child labor on Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa farms in Cote d’Ivoire here.
Allie Brudney is a Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab.
