The collective fortunes of the Ferrero and Mars families, who own the two biggest private chocolate corporations, surged to $160.9 billion during the same period. This is more than the combined GDPs of Ghana and Ivory Coast, which supply most cocoa beans.
Lindt, Mondelēz, and Nestlé together raked in nearly $4 billion in profits from chocolate sales in 2023. Hershey’s confectionary profits totaled $2 billion last year.
The four corporations paid out on average 97 percent of their total net profits to shareholders in 2023.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 33 points 2 months ago

The four corporations paid out on average 97 percent of their total net profits to shareholders in 2023.

What I’m reading here is both “You can afford to not use slave labor” and much less importantly “You’re overcharging me for chocolate! By a lot!”

[–] SpoopyKing@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 months ago

Ivory Coast GDP: $79.4B
Ghana GDP: $76.6B
Ivory Coast produced ~39% of global cocoa in 2022/2023 season
Ghana produced ~11% of global cocoa in 2022/2023 season
Mondelez net income: $5B
Mars net income: $6.5B
Nestle net income: $13.1B
Hershey net income: $1.5B

Data from Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa and Wikipedia

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nestle is the one that uses child slaves, right?

[–] stink@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They all do, there was even controversy that some "ethical" chocolate company really just bought chocolate from Nestle and repackaged it lol

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 23 points 2 months ago

It’s estimated there’s 1.6 million child laborers working in the cocoa industry in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.

[–] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 3 points 2 months ago

If it's Tony's Chocolonely you're thinking of, they bought from one of Nestlé's suppliers rather than Nestlé themselves. Still involves child slavery tho

[–] peeonyou@hexbear.net 6 points 2 months ago

and what do they do with those fortunes?