Dear Tony Vernon,
Good job Toblerone! You are one of the most popular chocolate companies now but you still don’t even have 1 fair trade item, many people haven’t tasted the bitter part of the chocolate yet… My class recently just viewed a documentary on Child Labor and Slavery. I did some research and found out this company does not support fair trade. Let me just say, I used to really love your chocolate, but wouldn’t it taste better if you didn’t feel the guilt behind all of it? I see many of your other competitors that are making more fair trade chocolate but Toblerone has been practically ignoring the truth, while doing NOTHING to even help. In 2001 all chocolate companies signed a form saying by 2008 there will be no more child labor. But here we are again, 2013 and it hasn’t stopped. What’s taking so LONG? While big companies make billion dollars a year, only most of the small ones are using most of their effort to make an impact on the world. If you turned your HUGE Company turned into Fair Trade you would promote your company more, making your chocolate stand out from the rest while. You have the POWER to stop this! I have just found out that since 19th November they Toblerone announced plans to invest $400m into cocoa farming communities. This is a great step forward, but when will we be able to buy Toblerone chocolate that is free from child trafficking? Every year the cocoa industry creates billions of dollars a year. The Ivory Coast produces almost half of the entire world's cocoa. There are about 600,000 cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, with about 15,000 children forced to work as slaves on these farms. Most of the kids are kidnapped from local areas and are taken without their parents’ permission. All of the kids are working under harsh living conditions and have to work all day; they are exposed to dangerous equipment like machetes, chemicals and are getting abused. They are treated horribly and if they don’t obey the rules they will get beaten, they work for long hours and have to travel long distances, forced to work approximately 80 hours a week without pay. The kids are scared both physically and mentally. They must carry huge heavy sacks of cocoa, and are often starved, beaten and locked up in a little shed with 20 other kids at night. I didn’t think that chocolate would come from the expense of