Who laid your Easter Egg
Who laid your Easter Egg……..
I’m sure everyone is looking forward to the Easter break and many kids (and big kids) are looking forward to breaking open those chocolate eggs this weekend.
Here are some interesting chocolate facts,
The largest chocolate sculpture ever made was a 10 foot high Easter egg constructed in Melbourne, Australia
Sales of dark chocolate have almost doubled in two years, growing 96 per cent to £85 million.
On average, each person in Britain eats approx. 10.2kg of chocolate per year.
Mintel figures presented on shoppingbag.com say that the UK chocolate market was worth £2.36 billion in 2009 that’s an increase of 5.9% over the 2008 figures.
The Ivory Coast in West Africa is the world’s leading producer of cocoa – supplying 43%.
One Cocoa pod can produce as much as 7 chocolate bars.
Thousands of children are being forced to work as slave labour on cocoa farms in West Africa. According to International labour Organisation figures, 12.000 children have been trafficked from countries like Mali and Burkino Faso to the Ivory Coast.
Easter Egg Facts
Eggs were traditionally used in pre-Christian festivals as the symbol of new life, purity or fertility. Later customs concerning eggs were linked with Easter because the egg provided a fresh and powerful symbol of the Resurrection and the transformation of death into life.
The first chocolate Easter egg was produced in 1873 by Fry’s.
The auctioneers Christie’s sold a diamond encrusted Faberge egg in November 2007 for £9m.
Approximately 80 million chocolate eggs are sold annually in the UK.
Easter chocolate sales make up 10% of Britain’s annual spending on chocolate.
£280million was spent on Easter eggs in the 4 days leading up to Easter 2008.
£32.7million was spent on Fairtrade Easter chocolate products in 2008.
Dieticians are warning that eating five Easter eggs (the average given to most children) plus the bars included with them, could see youngsters doubling their recommended calorie intake for a week, risking becoming hooked on chocolate, plus seeing their weight increase by several pounds within days. The recommended daily amounts are around 2,000 calories a day for an average 11-year-old boy and 1,500 for a girl, but many could be eating up to 10,000 calories over the Easter period.
Easter eggs for 2010 went on sale in Tescos on New Years day 2010
While we indulge in our chocolate frenzy this Easter please remember that there is a human cost involved.
The chocolate industry is worth $80 billion yet the workforce that generates this massive revenue have no running water, sanitation or electricity. They come from some of the most poverty stricken countries in the world and child trafficking is rife.
Are we in the west prepared to pay a little bit more for our chocolate so that cocoa farmers can have a decent quality of life and aren’t forced to use child labour?
As consumers we must vote with our wallets – boycott non-Fairtrade chocolate!
