Production

Roughly two-thirds of the entire world's cocoa is produced in Western Africa, with close to half of the total sourced from C魌e d'Ivoire. Like many food industry producers, individual cocoa farmers are at the mercy of volatile world markets. The price can vary from ?500 ($945) to ?3,000 ($5,672) per ton, in the space of just a few years. While investors trading in cacao can dump shares at will, individual cocoa farmers cannot increase production or abandon trees at anywhere near that pace. When cocoa prices drop, farmers in West Africa sometimes cut costs by using slave labor. It has been alleged that an estimated 90% of cocoa farms in C魌e d'Ivoire have used some form of slave labor in order to remain viable.[10] According to the World Cocoa Foundaton, some 50 million people around the world depend on cocoa as a source of livelihood.

Despite some disagreement in the EU about the definition, chocolate is any product made primarily of cocoa solids and cocoa fat. The different flavours of chocolate can be obtained by varying the time and temperature when roasting the beans, by adjusting the relative quantities of the cocoa solids and cocoa fat, and by adding non-chocolate ingredients.

Chocolate most commonly comes in dark, milk, and white varieties, with cocoa solids contributing to the brown coloration.

Production costs can be decreased by reducing cocoa solid content or by substituting cocoa butter with a non-cocoa fat, but allowing chocolate to be made with vegetable oils could have serious consequences for the millions of growers whose livelihoods depend on cocoa.

There are two main jobs associated with creating chocolate candy, chocolate makers and chocolatiers. Chocolate makers use harvested cacao beans and other ingredients to produce couverture chocolate. Chocolatiers use the finished couverture to make chocolate candies (bars, truffles, baked goods, etc.).

Chocolate is created from the cocoa bean. A cacao tree with fruit pods in various stages of ripening