#childlaws

I am a delicious Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Crème bar. I am made of: sugar, vegetable oil (palm oil, shea oil, sunflower oil, palm kernel oil; and/or safflower oil); skim milk; corn syrup solids; enriched wheat flour [flour; niacin; ferrous sulfate; thiamin mononitrate; riboflavin; folic acid]; lactose (milk); contains 2% or less of: cocoa processed with alkali; whey (milk); lecithin (soy); high fructose corn syrup; chocolate; baking soda; salt; natural flavor and artificial flavor; PGPR.

According to Smart Label, PGPR is polyglycerol polyricinoleate and it is used to keep ingredients from separating which allows the cookie chunks to stay in the bar. It also comes from castor bean oil and is used majority of the time to improve processing characteristics of chocolate. According to the Hershey Company, the milk in the Hershey bars comes from dairy cooperatives that suppl fresh milk to the local plant in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The cocoa is brought through their Swiss trading office located in Luzern, Switzerland.

According to Affinity Magazine, Hershey’s bars are produced in a factory. The cocoa found in Hershey’s bars is bought cheaply from the Ivory Coast that is mined by children who work on measly wages if they get any. These children of Western Africa live in poverty and desperate to make money for their families. This makes the gullible enough to be trafficked be people who tell them that they will be paid well for their work. In some cases, if the relatives need money enough, they are even sold by them to the cocoa industry. This is dangerous because children must use chainsaws and climb tall trees with machetes to cut cocoa bean pods. According to Aly Diabate, a former cocoa slave “Some of the bags were taller than me. It took two people to put the bag on my head. And when you didn’t hurry, you were beaten.” I paid $1.50 for the chocolate bar from Royal Farms.

https://smartlabel.hersheys.com/00034000002399-0011#ingredients

https://www.thehersheycompany.com/en_us/whats-inside/the-core-four.html