Halloween Treats Could Decimate African Forests
Update October 22, 2025
The disappearance of chocolates in McVities has caused alarm.
Two of Britain's most-loved chocolate biscuits can no longer be described as chocolate, as they do not contain enough cocoa. ITV News
The soaring costs of cocoa has left manufacturers trying to find cross-saving solutions.
Cocoa prices have more than doubled over the past two years due to poor weather and disease in West Africa, which supplies more than 70% of the world's cocoa.
This prompted Procurement Mag and Sustainability Mag to jump on the topic and repeat the corporate opinion that climate change is to blame.
But is climate change or price to blame for McVities brands to reduce chocolate content?
Fact checking on the topic shows a controversy surrounding the findings of the H. Sterling Burnett from the Heartland Institute which was fact checked by AFP.
The Heartland Institute continues to challenge the suggestion that climate change is to blame for . Their rebuttal of a news report "How the climate crisis will push up prices for your Easter chocolate" ripped apart the news report and blamed high prices for cocoa on government control of prices, not a lack of supply.
Linnea Lueken and H. Sterling Burnett's argument has the support of statistics and data on cocoa as compiled by Hannah Ritchie.
"The root of the problem for farmers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. They do not have the money to invest in more resilient or protected crops. In the short term, the governments in these countries could lift the fixed price, and pay more to farmers. But if we want a sustainable system, farmers will need to be paid a bigger cut for the cocoa that ends up in our chocolate bars."
The disappearance of chocolates in McVities has caused alarm.
Two of Britain's most-loved chocolate biscuits can no longer be described as chocolate, as they do not contain enough cocoa. ITV News
The soaring costs of cocoa has left manufacturers trying to find cross-saving solutions.
Cocoa prices have more than doubled over the past two years due to poor weather and disease in West Africa, which supplies more than 70% of the world's cocoa.
This prompted Procurement Mag and Sustainability Mag to jump on the topic and repeat the corporate opinion that climate change is to blame.
But is climate change or price to blame for McVities brands to reduce chocolate content?
Fact checking on the topic shows a controversy surrounding the findings of the H. Sterling Burnett from the Heartland Institute which was fact checked by AFP.
The Heartland Institute continues to challenge the suggestion that climate change is to blame for . Their rebuttal of a news report "How the climate crisis will push up prices for your Easter chocolate" ripped apart the news report and blamed high prices for cocoa on government control of prices, not a lack of supply.
Linnea Lueken and H. Sterling Burnett's argument has the support of statistics and data on cocoa as compiled by Hannah Ritchie.
"The root of the problem for farmers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. They do not have the money to invest in more resilient or protected crops. In the short term, the governments in these countries could lift the fixed price, and pay more to farmers. But if we want a sustainable system, farmers will need to be paid a bigger cut for the cocoa that ends up in our chocolate bars."
Halloween treats could clear out the last remaining forests in Africa if consumer demand for cocoa and chocolates continues.
The culprit may surprise you.
What was once a spiritual event has become a monstrous money making event as chocolate companies take over Halloween.
The culprit may surprise you.
What was once a spiritual event has become a monstrous money making event as chocolate companies take over Halloween.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo endorsed Halloween candies
Halloween which takes place every October 31st started as a spiritual day with roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian observance of All Hallows' Day.
But instead of learning about Celtic culture or the souls of loved departed ones, children who take part in this change of seasons today expect nothing less than a sweet chocolate in trick-or-treating.
Once upon a time, these sweet chocolates would start with cocoa and sugar to remove the bitterness of cocoa and some sort of fat to make these chocolates pleasing to the palate.
In these days of awareness of the environmental impact of producing cocoa and sugar, clever groups like Rainforest Action Network shifted the focus away from cocoa and created a Halloween scare in blaming palm oil for causing the nightmare that is climate change.
Rainforest Action Network is not unique in this aspect. Years of disinformation on Halloween candies led the Center for Food Safety to share proclaim:
"Americans will spend more than two billion dollars on candy this Halloween, making it candy's biggest holiday.
This is fun for kids, great for dentists, and downright fantastic for the Mars family. But before you head over to the store to buy this year's bowl of treats, you need to be made aware of a really scary, but not widely recognized, fact:
Many Halloween candies contain palm oil, the large-scale, monoculture production of which is driving deforestation, extinction, human rights abuses, and climate change!"
Really? Center for Food Safety? Palm oil causes cavities which is great for dentists? Not sugar?
Public entertainment facilities like the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo presents Halloween candies like Hershey bars, Snickers and Crunch as okay as these products used certified sustainable palm oil.
However, the CMZ’s endorsement of Hershey, Snickers and Crunch bars as “orangutan friendly” ignores the greater fright in Halloween candies which may contain child abuse and wildlife extinctions in cocoa from Africa.
While palm oil certification may have cleared the brands approved by the CMZ, fancy policies and certification programs for cocoa as employed by companies like Tony Chocolonely or Nestle have failed to tackle the problems with cocoa in deforestation and child abuse.
At the root of the problem is income for cocoa farmers which is a key driver of deforestation as farmers fell trees to expand farms – some 94% and 80% of deforestation in Ghana and Ivory Coast, respectively, is attributed to cocoa. Low incomes also fuel child labour.
These big brands in Halloween candies might have escaped their corporate responsibility in Coubaly et al v Cargill Inc et al, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-7104 as covered by Business Human Rights. Hershey, Mars, Nestle and others may have wriggled free of the accusations of child slavery in their cocoa supply due to Judge Justin Walker’s poor understanding of cocoa supply chains. The scary fact is Ivorian cocoa is present in 70% of of their purchases.
Scary Silence as Halloween treats are exposed
As Halloween 2025 approaches, there is a scary silence from US groups like Rainforest Action Network which has been eerily quiet on the topic of Halloween treats and palm oil in 2025.
This might have something to do with emerging information that the scariest ingredient in Halloween treats as far as deforestation goes, is cocoa and not palm oil as Rainforest Action Network has claimed for so many years.
The two African countries that produce most of the world’s cocoa have lost around 94% and 80% of their forests in the past 60 years, one-third of it to make way for growing cocoa.
The big problem with trying to make Halloween candies scary by posturing palm oil as a monster that threatens orangutans is that any Halloween chocolate can be made without palm oil.
But can you make chocolate without cocoa?
Apparently not. As big chocolate brands refuse to pay African farmers a fair price for cocoa the future fright for Halloween treats might be the quiet rebranding to remove the word "chocolates" to prevent fraudulent claims.
Check out this news report by The Guardian.
If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit … look away now
Club and Penguin bars are now ‘chocolate flavour’ after owner McVitie’s cuts cocoa content amid soaring prices
Club and Penguin can no longer be described as chocolate biscuits as they contain more palm oil and shea oil than cocoa.
So what if McVitie's replaced cocoa with palm oil and shea? McVitie's is not the first corporate brand to reduce cocoa as an ingredient.
Earlier this year, Nestlé removed the word ‘chocolate’ from their White KitKat packets, with McVities’ White Digestive packaging doing the same recently. The cocoa butter got completely replaced with palm, shea and salt oils.
Sky News reports that McVitie's is also removing the word "chocolate" from its branding.
Yet they've changed Club's famous slogan from "if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our Club" to "if you like a lot of biscuit in your break, join our Club".
The Sky News report blamed high prices of cocoa as the decisive factor for McVitie's and Nestlé to remove cocoa as an ingredient in popular "chocolatey" brands. Corporate reasons are quoted blaming high prices of cocoa on "poor harvests due to El Nino and various diseases" affecting cocoa production but one has to question if cocoa farmers could have prevented some of it if they had been paid a fair price.
Never mind the corporate and NGO speak in "fair prices" or "living wages", these condemn farmers to the lowest level of subsistence farming which may put food on the table for the farmers but lacks an allowance for future proofing cocoa production in Africa.
Imagine if the profits from McVitie's or Nestlé had been invested earlier into future proofing their supply of cocoa. The income disparity between those who claim to have influence over protecting African forests and the poor African farmer accused of deforestation is nothing less than abuse.
Child Abuse in Halloween Sweets Scarier than Climate Change
For too long, a few clever Americans have made a grand profit while claiming to be “protecting OUR forests for the future” working for groups like Mighty Earth or Rainforest Action Network.
This is a smart use of a US tax loophole where:
Many NGOs in the United States are qualified as exempt from state and federal taxes. This legal status makes it easier for NGOs to operate as nonprofit organizations, because they do not have to pay tax on the income (funding) they receive.
Salaries and benefits gobble up most of the tax-free income according to this tax filing by Mighty Earth. Cause IQ shows the CEO Glenn Hurowitz and COO Cindy Schwartz making good six-figure salaries.
Cause IQ has a separate report on Mighty Earth’s biggest donor, the cleverly named Climate Imperative Foundation.
The Climate Imperative Foundation is the newest and richest anti-hydrocarbon, anti-natural gas group you’ve never heard of according to Robert Bryce.
How rich is Climate Imperative Foundation? According to the latest report from Guidestar, the group took in $221 million in its first full year of operation.
So here we have a few billionaires employing lackeys like Mighty Earth to do the dirty jobs.
Mighty Earth in obeisance to its funders recently declared that big global brands Mars Wrigley, Ferrero, Nestlé, Olam Agri, and Tony’s Chocolonely are arguing against a delay of the EUDR because Mars Wrigley, Ferrero, Nestlé, Olam Agri, and Tony’s Chocolonely are ready to comply with the EU’s deforestation regulations.
FERN, an European NGO was trotted out by Mighty Earth to support the claim that big European companies are ready to comply with EUDR based on the statement of one Ghanaian cocoa farmer Leticia Yankey.
So why are cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast saying that the EU deforestation rules and certification might bankrupt them?
It might have something to do with Tony’s Chocolonely and their promotional friends at Fairtrade.
According to Fairafric’s criticism of Fairtrade:
Fairtrade doesn't pay a living wage, perpetuates poverty, fails to adequately address child labor, and can actually harm small farmers through high costs and a lack of individual control over premiums. Critics argue the system is a branding tool for consumers, with little of the extra price reaching the farmers, while others contend that its structure, like mandatory community-level projects funded by the premium, prevents individual farmers from making their own choices.
Children in America are not expected to know that African children were found slaving in 4 out of 6 Fairtrade certified plantations supplying European consumers.
Removing child abuse and deforestation in Halloween treats could happen faster than anything the EUDR or Fairtrade has to offer according to this report by the United Nations Development Program.
“Aka went on to explain the journey of a cocoa bean once it’s harvested: multinational companies buy raw cocoa from Ivory Coast, process it in Europe or the United States (such as grinding and roasting), and then sell it to major chocolate brands like Ferrero, Lindt, and Nestlé. These companies are reluctant to give up their control over the market, which significantly hampers the development of a local chocolate industry.
“This needs to change,” he firmly stated. “If 50% of our cocoa were processed locally, it could create thousands of jobs, increase farmers' incomes, and reduce poverty.”
Made in Africa Halloween chocolates a scary prospect for big brands and NGOs
The “Made in Ivory Coast” Halloween chocolate looks promising despite the clutches of Ferrero,Lindt or Nestle to their control of cocoa supplies.
China’s investments into a Made in Ivory Coast or Made in Ghana chocolates are making the dream of African control over chocolates more likely.
The investments into the cocoa processing plants is intended to allow the Ivory Coast to capture a bigger share of the chocolate value chain. The scariest part of this development is how the costs of building these factories will not be paid in US dollars or Euros but in cocoa beans.
This should scare the bejeebers out of Ferrero, Lindt, and Nestlé etc which pay into “sustainability certifications” for cocoa instead of local economies. According to the Corporate Accountability Lab:
Yet over the past decade, certification schemes – such as Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade International, and Fair Trade USA – and so-called sustainability programs – like Mondelez’s Cocoa Life, Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan, Mars’ Cocoa for Generations, and Hershey’s Cocoa For Good – have proliferated. This has led to a confusing array of labels on chocolate products that all purport that the cocoa was produced under “decent working conditions” and “sustainably.”
But with the current cocoa system – in which companies pay unsustainably low prices for cocoa and hazardous child labor is widespread – it’s simply not possible that so much cocoa was actually produced ethically or sustainably.
Kudos to CAL in challenging corporate sustainability claims to keep big brands like Ferrero, Lindt, Mondelez, Mars and Nestle honest.
These global brands should pay attention to Africa’s emerging demands where certification schemes and sustainability programs are a prime example of the saying “ money talks, bullshit walks.”
Farmers and children working in the Ivory Coast’s cocoa farms can now sleep peacefully according to Africa News which quoted a cocoa farmer, Berlem Oumarou from the south, "we can send our children to school and sleep peacefully," highlighting the direct impact of higher prices for cocoa beans on the livelihoods of Africans.
Another farmer, Edmond M'Bra as saying "We are very happy; producers have been suffering for years."
There is no chance that children trick or treating this Halloween will be given a candy made with the blessings an African farmer and his children but one can hope that this happy event will occur in the near future.
Published October 2025 CSPO Watch
But instead of learning about Celtic culture or the souls of loved departed ones, children who take part in this change of seasons today expect nothing less than a sweet chocolate in trick-or-treating.
Once upon a time, these sweet chocolates would start with cocoa and sugar to remove the bitterness of cocoa and some sort of fat to make these chocolates pleasing to the palate.
In these days of awareness of the environmental impact of producing cocoa and sugar, clever groups like Rainforest Action Network shifted the focus away from cocoa and created a Halloween scare in blaming palm oil for causing the nightmare that is climate change.
Rainforest Action Network is not unique in this aspect. Years of disinformation on Halloween candies led the Center for Food Safety to share proclaim:
"Americans will spend more than two billion dollars on candy this Halloween, making it candy's biggest holiday.
This is fun for kids, great for dentists, and downright fantastic for the Mars family. But before you head over to the store to buy this year's bowl of treats, you need to be made aware of a really scary, but not widely recognized, fact:
Many Halloween candies contain palm oil, the large-scale, monoculture production of which is driving deforestation, extinction, human rights abuses, and climate change!"
Really? Center for Food Safety? Palm oil causes cavities which is great for dentists? Not sugar?
Public entertainment facilities like the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo presents Halloween candies like Hershey bars, Snickers and Crunch as okay as these products used certified sustainable palm oil.
However, the CMZ’s endorsement of Hershey, Snickers and Crunch bars as “orangutan friendly” ignores the greater fright in Halloween candies which may contain child abuse and wildlife extinctions in cocoa from Africa.
While palm oil certification may have cleared the brands approved by the CMZ, fancy policies and certification programs for cocoa as employed by companies like Tony Chocolonely or Nestle have failed to tackle the problems with cocoa in deforestation and child abuse.
At the root of the problem is income for cocoa farmers which is a key driver of deforestation as farmers fell trees to expand farms – some 94% and 80% of deforestation in Ghana and Ivory Coast, respectively, is attributed to cocoa. Low incomes also fuel child labour.
These big brands in Halloween candies might have escaped their corporate responsibility in Coubaly et al v Cargill Inc et al, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-7104 as covered by Business Human Rights. Hershey, Mars, Nestle and others may have wriggled free of the accusations of child slavery in their cocoa supply due to Judge Justin Walker’s poor understanding of cocoa supply chains. The scary fact is Ivorian cocoa is present in 70% of of their purchases.
Scary Silence as Halloween treats are exposed
As Halloween 2025 approaches, there is a scary silence from US groups like Rainforest Action Network which has been eerily quiet on the topic of Halloween treats and palm oil in 2025.
This might have something to do with emerging information that the scariest ingredient in Halloween treats as far as deforestation goes, is cocoa and not palm oil as Rainforest Action Network has claimed for so many years.
The two African countries that produce most of the world’s cocoa have lost around 94% and 80% of their forests in the past 60 years, one-third of it to make way for growing cocoa.
The big problem with trying to make Halloween candies scary by posturing palm oil as a monster that threatens orangutans is that any Halloween chocolate can be made without palm oil.
But can you make chocolate without cocoa?
Apparently not. As big chocolate brands refuse to pay African farmers a fair price for cocoa the future fright for Halloween treats might be the quiet rebranding to remove the word "chocolates" to prevent fraudulent claims.
Check out this news report by The Guardian.
If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit … look away now
Club and Penguin bars are now ‘chocolate flavour’ after owner McVitie’s cuts cocoa content amid soaring prices
Club and Penguin can no longer be described as chocolate biscuits as they contain more palm oil and shea oil than cocoa.
So what if McVitie's replaced cocoa with palm oil and shea? McVitie's is not the first corporate brand to reduce cocoa as an ingredient.
Earlier this year, Nestlé removed the word ‘chocolate’ from their White KitKat packets, with McVities’ White Digestive packaging doing the same recently. The cocoa butter got completely replaced with palm, shea and salt oils.
Sky News reports that McVitie's is also removing the word "chocolate" from its branding.
Yet they've changed Club's famous slogan from "if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our Club" to "if you like a lot of biscuit in your break, join our Club".
The Sky News report blamed high prices of cocoa as the decisive factor for McVitie's and Nestlé to remove cocoa as an ingredient in popular "chocolatey" brands. Corporate reasons are quoted blaming high prices of cocoa on "poor harvests due to El Nino and various diseases" affecting cocoa production but one has to question if cocoa farmers could have prevented some of it if they had been paid a fair price.
Never mind the corporate and NGO speak in "fair prices" or "living wages", these condemn farmers to the lowest level of subsistence farming which may put food on the table for the farmers but lacks an allowance for future proofing cocoa production in Africa.
Imagine if the profits from McVitie's or Nestlé had been invested earlier into future proofing their supply of cocoa. The income disparity between those who claim to have influence over protecting African forests and the poor African farmer accused of deforestation is nothing less than abuse.
Child Abuse in Halloween Sweets Scarier than Climate Change
For too long, a few clever Americans have made a grand profit while claiming to be “protecting OUR forests for the future” working for groups like Mighty Earth or Rainforest Action Network.
This is a smart use of a US tax loophole where:
Many NGOs in the United States are qualified as exempt from state and federal taxes. This legal status makes it easier for NGOs to operate as nonprofit organizations, because they do not have to pay tax on the income (funding) they receive.
Salaries and benefits gobble up most of the tax-free income according to this tax filing by Mighty Earth. Cause IQ shows the CEO Glenn Hurowitz and COO Cindy Schwartz making good six-figure salaries.
Cause IQ has a separate report on Mighty Earth’s biggest donor, the cleverly named Climate Imperative Foundation.
The Climate Imperative Foundation is the newest and richest anti-hydrocarbon, anti-natural gas group you’ve never heard of according to Robert Bryce.
How rich is Climate Imperative Foundation? According to the latest report from Guidestar, the group took in $221 million in its first full year of operation.
So here we have a few billionaires employing lackeys like Mighty Earth to do the dirty jobs.
Mighty Earth in obeisance to its funders recently declared that big global brands Mars Wrigley, Ferrero, Nestlé, Olam Agri, and Tony’s Chocolonely are arguing against a delay of the EUDR because Mars Wrigley, Ferrero, Nestlé, Olam Agri, and Tony’s Chocolonely are ready to comply with the EU’s deforestation regulations.
FERN, an European NGO was trotted out by Mighty Earth to support the claim that big European companies are ready to comply with EUDR based on the statement of one Ghanaian cocoa farmer Leticia Yankey.
So why are cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast saying that the EU deforestation rules and certification might bankrupt them?
It might have something to do with Tony’s Chocolonely and their promotional friends at Fairtrade.
According to Fairafric’s criticism of Fairtrade:
Fairtrade doesn't pay a living wage, perpetuates poverty, fails to adequately address child labor, and can actually harm small farmers through high costs and a lack of individual control over premiums. Critics argue the system is a branding tool for consumers, with little of the extra price reaching the farmers, while others contend that its structure, like mandatory community-level projects funded by the premium, prevents individual farmers from making their own choices.
Children in America are not expected to know that African children were found slaving in 4 out of 6 Fairtrade certified plantations supplying European consumers.
Removing child abuse and deforestation in Halloween treats could happen faster than anything the EUDR or Fairtrade has to offer according to this report by the United Nations Development Program.
“Aka went on to explain the journey of a cocoa bean once it’s harvested: multinational companies buy raw cocoa from Ivory Coast, process it in Europe or the United States (such as grinding and roasting), and then sell it to major chocolate brands like Ferrero, Lindt, and Nestlé. These companies are reluctant to give up their control over the market, which significantly hampers the development of a local chocolate industry.
“This needs to change,” he firmly stated. “If 50% of our cocoa were processed locally, it could create thousands of jobs, increase farmers' incomes, and reduce poverty.”
Made in Africa Halloween chocolates a scary prospect for big brands and NGOs
The “Made in Ivory Coast” Halloween chocolate looks promising despite the clutches of Ferrero,Lindt or Nestle to their control of cocoa supplies.
China’s investments into a Made in Ivory Coast or Made in Ghana chocolates are making the dream of African control over chocolates more likely.
The investments into the cocoa processing plants is intended to allow the Ivory Coast to capture a bigger share of the chocolate value chain. The scariest part of this development is how the costs of building these factories will not be paid in US dollars or Euros but in cocoa beans.
This should scare the bejeebers out of Ferrero, Lindt, and Nestlé etc which pay into “sustainability certifications” for cocoa instead of local economies. According to the Corporate Accountability Lab:
Yet over the past decade, certification schemes – such as Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade International, and Fair Trade USA – and so-called sustainability programs – like Mondelez’s Cocoa Life, Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan, Mars’ Cocoa for Generations, and Hershey’s Cocoa For Good – have proliferated. This has led to a confusing array of labels on chocolate products that all purport that the cocoa was produced under “decent working conditions” and “sustainably.”
But with the current cocoa system – in which companies pay unsustainably low prices for cocoa and hazardous child labor is widespread – it’s simply not possible that so much cocoa was actually produced ethically or sustainably.
Kudos to CAL in challenging corporate sustainability claims to keep big brands like Ferrero, Lindt, Mondelez, Mars and Nestle honest.
These global brands should pay attention to Africa’s emerging demands where certification schemes and sustainability programs are a prime example of the saying “ money talks, bullshit walks.”
Farmers and children working in the Ivory Coast’s cocoa farms can now sleep peacefully according to Africa News which quoted a cocoa farmer, Berlem Oumarou from the south, "we can send our children to school and sleep peacefully," highlighting the direct impact of higher prices for cocoa beans on the livelihoods of Africans.
Another farmer, Edmond M'Bra as saying "We are very happy; producers have been suffering for years."
There is no chance that children trick or treating this Halloween will be given a candy made with the blessings an African farmer and his children but one can hope that this happy event will occur in the near future.
Published October 2025 CSPO Watch