Why the Major Chocolate Makers Suck So Badly

 

There are a few benefits of having so many large, mostly private, chocolate institutions in America (even now Cadbury).  I'm thinking of the cacao genome mapping projects by Hershey's and Mar's in the past year.  Both of those companies have released their results to the public with no patent and have created a possibility of better, cheaper, and efficient chocolate.  But as charitable as that may have seemed, they accomplished it with money they overcharged us.

Filed in a courthouse in Eastern Pennsylvania, a class action suit has arisen.  The suit claims that "[Hershey's, Mar's, Nestle, and Cadbury]...engaged in an unlawful conspiracy to fix, raise, maintain or stabilize the prices of chocolate candy in violation of federal antitrust laws. Plaintiffs allege that, as a result of the unlawful conspiracy, they and other direct purchasers paid more for chocolate candy than they would have paid absent the conspiracy. Defendants deny Plaintiffs’ allegations."

Price fixing at a time (2002-2007) when world hunger and economic hardship was just becoming a problem known to the world.  We hadn't reached our current state of depression, but perhaps this was one of the reasons why we were effected so badly.  AND, ALL of these companies have raised their prices since then, not lowered them.

So is the conspiracy still occurring?  Probably.  Will we ever be able to stop it?  Probably not.  What we can do as consumers is to just NOT BUY from these companies anymore.  Stop buying those junk candy bars from the aisle when you're hungry and need a bite.  They won't help you feel full.  And those companies won't feed the children who harvest that cacao, either.  Stop buying those brands and the conspiracy WILL stop.


If you want to know more about the class action lawsuit go here:
www.ChocolateSettlementDirect.com
www.ChocolateSettlementIndirect.com