Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, & the Ethics of Business

Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Winter 2006

Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, & the Ethics of Business

Lowell J. Satre

In 1901, Cadbury Bros., Ltd, a firm known for its fine chocolates and its progressive work policies, discovered that its cocoa beans were grown using slave labor on Portuguese plantations on the island of Sao Tome, West Africa. Accused by London newspapers of dragging its feet and hypocrisy in correcting the problem, Cadbury sued the Standard of London for libel. Chocolate on Trial probes the issues of globalization, corporate social responsibility, journalistic sensationalism, and devious diplomacy at a time when western industrialized society was beginning to ask whether some cheap goods might have too high a cost.

Lowell J. Satre was inducted into the Youngstown State University chapter of Phi Kappa Phi in 1972.