

Seeds of Change Research Farm

Shapiro is global director of plant science and external research for Mars, the secretive food empire most famous for its eponymous chocolate bar. He doesn’t look a lot like Jesus but does have a mesmerising long white beard, which dates back beyond a decade of corporate life to when he founded a radical organic food company, Seeds of Change.

Twelve years after Seeds of Change was sold to Mars – amid cries of betrayal from some customers – Shapiro recently announced that the world’s biggest chocolate company is committing itself to sustainable sourcing of the whole of its annual cocoa bean supply, worth more than $1billion. The policy starts with the Galaxy bar and by 2020 will encompass not just Gal­axy and Mars but also Snickers, Twix and M&Ms. The new strategy also covers environmental issues and labour, dwarfing Cadbury’s pledge that all Dairy Milk chocolate will be Fairtrade later this year…

Mars bought Seeds of Change because it saw a future in ethical production, says Shapiro. Crucially, however, Mars had the might to put those principles into practice on a much bigger scale. “If you’re interested in the future, scale is one of the things that’s critical,” says Shapiro. “I’m interested in not having any hungry people in the world. I’m interested in changing the lives of as many people as possible…”

About 18 months ago Ethical Consumer magazine gave “before” and “after” scores to brands that had been sold to corporations: like many of the acquisitions, Seeds of Change did badly, dropping from 15 to 3.5 out of 20. This Easter the UK-based magazine ranked chocolate eggs: again, two Mars brands – Mars and Galaxy – did badly, scoring a near-bottom three out of 20. The company was marked down for poor environmental reporting, testing on animals, operations in oppressive regimes and campaigning against EU obesity laws.

Ethical Consumer, of course, isn’t concerned with peoples’ needs and wholesome food as much as it is at being a religion. Satisfying requirements from the PETA-side of the spectrum and holier-than-thou ideologues might not work with the original company. If you want to function in a market-driven world, you sometimes have to do business with people who don’t belong to your church.

Last June Mars announced it would contribute $10m to a project to map the cacao tree genome and publish it for free to speed up the development of quicker-growing and more resilient varieties. In November the company sponsored a major conference of NGOs and governments to develop a 30-year plan to encourage cocoa growers in Africa to plant different crops to restore nutrients to degraded soil and bring a year-round income.

This was background to the announcement in April that the Rainforest Alliance and at least five other global certification bodies will be asked to make sure all cocoa beans bought by Mars meet standards such as a minimum wages for farmers, conserving water and biodiversity-friendly pest management.

Unfortunately, the EC-crowd is as likely to whinge over mapping the cacao tree genome because it allows GM chocolate which they probably fear will turn their toenails curly. And they’d ignore the 3rd World farmers who might earn a safe, reliable living as a result.