It's no secret that we can't get enough of the sweet stuff - in Britain we eat roughly 660,900 tonnes of chocolate a year. Whilst roughly 70% of cocoa beans are grown in West Africa, cocoa farming is still a huge industry in Brazil and Ecuador. Because of the developing nature of these source countries, chocolate is a food that carries with it a high risk of slavery and exploitation occurring somewhere along the supply chain. That’s why eating Fairtrade certified chocolate is so important, and why it can literally save the lives of those who grow it.

The average cocoa farmer in the Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa, earns the equivalent of just 75p a day, with 58% living below the poverty line. 75p is not enough to support a good lifestyle for an individual, let alone a family. Fairtrade has been working for years to help farmers earn a living by pushing up the minimum prices for cocoa beans that can be paid by western chocolate producers, ending the exploitation that sees these billion dollar companies keep workers trapped in a poverty cycle, guaranteeing them cheap labour for generations to come.

It’s important to acknowledge the colonial history of chocolate. Once the European craze for the sweet treat truly took hold, cocoa plants were established that ran on slave labour. A disregard for the lives of the majority Black farmers who produce cocoa beans nowadays is rooted in racist systems of exploitation that companies still profit from today.