EvilCorporations.com · Corporate Accountability Project
⚠️ Mondelez International · Consumer Fraud · 2024
Mondelez Sold “Sustainable” Chocolate Built on Child Labor
The company behind Oreos, Toblerone, and Cadbury stamped a “100% sustainably sourced” seal on its products while 1.56 million children worked hazardous jobs on the cocoa farms feeding its supply chain.
🔴 CRITICAL SEVERITY
TL;DR
Mondelez International, the $36 billion company that makes Oreos, Toblerone, and Cadbury, invented a sustainability program called “Cocoa Life” and plastered it on its packaging. The logo claims cocoa is “100% sustainably sourced” and that the company “helps cocoa farmers and their families flourish.” In reality, the supply chain feeding those products is linked to farms in West Africa where children as young as 10 work with machetes, farmers earn less than a dollar per day, and forests are being destroyed at double the global average deforestation rate. Mondelez knew. It sold the lie anyway, charging premium prices to consumers who trusted the label.
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$36B
Mondelez 2023 annual revenue
1.56M
Children working in West Africa cocoa sector
1.48M
Children exposed to hazardous child labor
<$1
Daily earnings of typical cocoa farmers
10
Age of youngest documented child laborers
2/3
Share of world cocoa from West Africa
⚠️ Core Allegations: What Mondelez Did
The Greenwashing Operation
How Mondelez manufactured a false sustainability image
| 01 | Mondelez created the “Cocoa Life” program in 2012 and placed its logo on Oreo, Toblerone, and Cote D’Or packaging with the claim of “100% sustainably sourced cocoa,” a representation it could not substantiate. | high |
| 02 | The packaging told consumers that Mondelez “helps protect people and planet” and helps “cocoa farmers and their families flourish,” while offering no publicly available standards to back those claims. | high |
| 03 | Mondelez used the Cocoa Life seal to charge higher prices, capture greater market share, and outcompete honestly-labeled rivals, profiting directly from consumer trust it did not earn. | high |
| 04 | The FTC has explicitly warned companies not to use unqualified claims like “sustainable” without substantiation. Mondelez used the claim on millions of product units nationwide. | med |
| 05 | Mondelez publicly pledged to end child labor in its supply chain by signing the Harkin-Engel Protocol in 2001, with a target year of 2005. Twenty years after that deadline, child labor persists in its supply chain. | high |
Child Labor in the Supply Chain
Children as young as 10 doing hazardous work for Mondelez-sourcing farms
| 01 | A DOL-funded NORC Report found 1.56 million children working in the cocoa sector in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the two countries supplying roughly two-thirds of the world’s cocoa, including Mondelez’s. | high |
| 02 | Of those 1.56 million children, 1.48 million were exposed to at least one component of hazardous child labor in cocoa production, including children as young as 10 performing arduous manual labor. | high |
| 03 | A 2022 documentary exposed child labor on plantations in Ghana participating directly in Mondelez’s “Cocoa Life” program. One child laborer, forced to work on a Mondelez plantation from ages 10 to 19, was filmed performing hazardous work. | high |
| 04 | After that child laborer was filmed, agents of Mondelez threatened her and her family and offered bribes to make her recant her testimony on camera. | high |
| 05 | An October 2023 anti-slavery investigation found instances of child labor on numerous plantations with direct sourcing relationships with Mondelez, concluding that most workers on those farms were children. | high |
| 06 | Children from Cote d’Ivoire and children trafficked from Burkina Faso and Mali were among those performing illegal hazardous work on cocoa farms feeding Mondelez’s supply chain. | high |
Farmer Poverty and Wage Theft
Farmers paid less than a dollar a day while Mondelez earned $36 billion
| 01 | Farmers on typical Ivorian and Ghanaian cocoa farms, from which Mondelez sources cocoa, live well below the World Bank’s poverty line, earning less than one dollar per day. | high |
| 02 | In 2021, Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa regulator accused Mondelez of refusing to pay the Living Income Differential premium, a surcharge designed specifically to keep cocoa farmers from falling deeper into poverty. | high |
| 03 | Mondelez ranked No. 115 on the 2024 Fortune 500 list and reported $36 billion in 2023 revenue while the farmers underpinning its supply chain earned wages the Guardian reported at less than two euros per day. | high |
| 04 | Mondelez was aware that consumers pay more for sustainably sourced chocolate and deliberately used that awareness to price its products at a premium, extracting wealth from ethical consumers without delivering ethical practices. | med |
Deforestation and Environmental Destruction
West African forests destroyed at double the global average rate
| 01 | About one-third of forest loss in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana over the last 60 years is directly attributable to cocoa production, the same region supplying Mondelez’s cocoa. | high |
| 02 | The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization reports that nearly 4 million hectares of African forests are cut down each year, almost double the world’s deforestation average, with cocoa farming as a primary driver. | high |
| 03 | Cocoa monocropping depletes soil nutrients, requires heavy pesticide use, and pollutes adjacent rivers and streams, threatening wildlife and disrupting regional food systems. | med |
| 04 | The Rainforest Action Network gave Mondelez an “F” grade in its 2023 Keep Forests Standing report card, citing failures to hold bad actors accountable, absence of independent verification, and no proof of free, prior, and informed consent from affected communities. | high |
| 05 | Mondelez signed the Cocoa and Forests Initiative alongside 36 other companies and two governments. Five years later, Reuters reported that halting cocoa-driven deforestation remained “elusive” due to Mondelez and its peers failing to implement real supply chain traceability. | high |
Accountability Failures
Public pledges, private inaction, and threats against witnesses
| 01 | Mondelez framed the Cocoa Life program as “mostly run by NGOs, suppliers, governments and other partners” funded by Mondelez, allowing the company to claim credit for the program while distancing itself from direct responsibility for supply chain abuses. | med |
| 02 | After a child laborer was filmed documenting conditions on a Mondelez Cocoa Life farm, the company’s agents threatened the child and her family rather than addressing the underlying abuse. | high |
| 03 | A Washington Post investigation named Mondelez as one of the companies that cannot “guarantee that any of their products were free of child labor,” despite the explicit guarantee printed on its packaging. | high |
| 04 | Mondelez received pre-suit notice of these violations on August 5, 2024, and was given 30 days to correct its practices. It took no corrective action. | med |
🕐 Timeline of Events
2001
Mondelez (then Kraft) signs the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a voluntary pledge to eliminate child labor from West African cocoa production by 2005. The deadline passes with no meaningful change.
2012
Mondelez launches the “Cocoa Life” program, claiming it will secure sustainable cocoa and transform farming communities in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
Oct 2020
NORC Report, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, finds 1.56 million children working in the cocoa sector in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, with 1.48 million exposed to hazardous child labor.
June 2021
Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa regulator accuses Mondelez of refusing to pay the Living Income Differential premium owed to farmers, deepening poverty among the farmers the company publicly claimed to be helping.
Apr 2022
A documentary exposes child labor on Cocoa Life-certified plantations in Ghana. A child forced to work on a Mondelez farm from ages 10 to 19 is filmed. Agents of Mondelez subsequently threaten her and offer her family bribes to recant.
Jan 2023
Reuters reports that after five years, the recipe to end deforestation from cocoa farming “remains elusive,” citing lack of traceability and supply chain transparency among companies including Mondelez.
Nov 2023
Rainforest Action Network gives Mondelez an “F” in its Keep Forests Standing report. An anti-slavery organization separately finds that most workers on Mondelez-supplying plantations are children.
Aug 5, 2024
Mondelez receives pre-suit notice demanding it correct deceptive practices within 30 days. The company takes no corrective action.
Aug 16, 2024
Class action complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of all U.S. consumers who purchased Cocoa Life-labeled products. Claims include violations of consumer protection statutes in all 50 states, breach of express warranty, and unjust enrichment.
💬 Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
The core false promise printed on millions of packages
Core Allegations
“100% sustainably sourced cocoa”
💡 This claim, printed directly on Oreo packaging alongside the Cocoa Life seal, is the central deception: Mondelez made an absolute guarantee to consumers that its cocoa was fully sustainable, a claim investigators and regulators have found it cannot support.
QUOTE 2
The promise to farmers that Mondelez broke
Farmer Poverty
“help[s] . . . cocoa farmers and their families flourish” and “improve[s] their living conditions”
💡 Mondelez printed this promise on Cote D’Or packaging while its own supply chain farms paid farmers less than a dollar a day and while Cote d’Ivoire’s regulator accused Mondelez of refusing to pay the living wage premium farmers were legally owed.
QUOTE 3
The planet-protection claim that earned an F grade
Deforestation
“helps protect people & planet”
💡 Oreo packaging carried this exact phrase while Mondelez’s supply chain contributed to the destruction of West African forests at nearly double the global deforestation average. The Rainforest Action Network graded Mondelez an “F” for forest protection the year after this complaint was filed.
QUOTE 4
Mondelez’s own statement on child labor, contradicted by its supply chain
Accountability Failures
“believe[s] the entire cocoa sector should be free of child labor”
💡 Mondelez published this in its own Cocoa Life strategy document in October 2022, the same period when its supply chain was found to include farms where most of the workers were children, including children as young as 10.
QUOTE 5
The complaint’s finding on Mondelez’s intent
Profit Over People
“By deceiving consumers about the nature and quality of its Products, Mondelez is able to sell a greater volume of the Products, to charge higher prices for the Products, and to take market share away from competing products”
💡 The complaint makes clear this was not negligence. Mondelez knew consumers paid premiums for ethical products, manufactured a fake ethical certification, and extracted those premiums at scale.
QUOTE 6
The cover-up after a child laborer spoke out
Accountability Failures
“she and her family were threatened and offered bribes by agents of Mondelez to recant her story”
💡 After a child forced to work on a Mondelez farm from age 10 to 19 was filmed documenting her experience, the company’s agents attempted to silence her. This is not an oversight. This is active suppression of evidence of child exploitation.
QUOTE 7
What the consumer data shows about the stakes of this deception
Consumer Harm
“more than 75 percent of consumers would no longer purchase from brands they knew were employing child labor, even if the consumers had often bought from these brands in the past”
💡 Mondelez was aware of this data. Its entire Cocoa Life marketing strategy was designed to prevent consumers from making the informed choice the evidence demanded they be allowed to make.
💬 Commentary
What exactly is Mondelez accused of doing wrong?
Mondelez is accused of running a systematic consumer deception campaign: inventing a sustainability certification called “Cocoa Life,” printing it on the packaging of Oreos, Toblerone, and Cadbury products, and using that certification to charge higher prices and win market share from competitors. The certification claimed cocoa was “100% sustainably sourced” and that the company “helps cocoa farmers and their families flourish.” Investigators, journalists, anti-slavery organizations, and environmental groups all found those claims to be false. The supply chain linked to these products involves child labor, farmer poverty wages, and large-scale deforestation.
How serious is this lawsuit? Is it credible?
This is a federal class action filed in the Northern District of Illinois with claims under consumer protection statutes in all 50 states, as well as breach of express warranty and unjust enrichment. The allegations are supported by a DOL-funded academic report, a Washington Post investigation, a Guardian investigation, a 2022 documentary, a 2023 anti-slavery organization report, and Rainforest Action Network’s graded scorecard. Multiple independent sources corroborate the core claim: Mondelez’s supply chain is linked to child labor and environmental destruction, directly contradicting its public-facing marketing.
Were real children harmed, or is this just about packaging language?
Real children were harmed. The DOL-funded NORC Report found 1.48 million children exposed to hazardous child labor in the cocoa sector in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. A named child was documented working on a Mondelez Cocoa Life farm from age 10 to age 19 performing hazardous work. When she tried to tell her story on camera, Mondelez’s agents threatened her family and offered bribes to silence her. An anti-slavery investigation found that most workers on multiple Mondelez-supplying farms were children. This is not abstract harm. These are individual children whose bodies and futures were exploited so Mondelez could sell more cookies.
Why did Mondelez get away with this for so long?
The structure of Mondelez’s Cocoa Life program was designed to create plausible distance between the company and the farms in its supply chain. The program was “mostly run by NGOs, suppliers, governments and other partners,” allowing Mondelez to claim the program existed while shifting responsibility for enforcement elsewhere. Supply chain complexity, lack of government-mandated traceability requirements, and the weak enforcement of voluntary pledges like the Harkin-Engel Protocol created conditions where companies could make sustainability claims with little accountability. Mondelez signed deforestation-prevention agreements and child-labor-elimination pledges for over two decades without delivering on either.
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
Stop buying Cocoa Life-labeled products until Mondelez implements independently verified, fully traceable supply chains with binding commitments to farmer living wages and zero child labor. Contact your federal and state representatives and demand mandatory supply chain due diligence laws similar to those enacted in France, Germany, and the EU. Support organizations working directly on cocoa child labor: International Labor Rights Forum, Stop the Traffik, and the International Cocoa Initiative’s enforcement programs. Share this story. Corporate behavior changes when consumers organize and apply coordinated public pressure. Mondelez’s market value is built on your purchasing decisions.
Who is affected by this class action?
Any consumer in the United States who purchased Oreos, Toblerone, Cote D’Or, Cadbury, or other Mondelez products bearing the Cocoa Life logo during the class period may be a class member. The complaint alleges claims exceed $5 million in the aggregate. Class members would include anyone who paid a price premium based on the belief that the cocoa in their products was ethically and sustainably sourced, which is exactly what Mondelez’s packaging told them.
What does Mondelez’s “F” grade from Rainforest Action Network mean?
The Rainforest Action Network’s 2023 Keep Forests Standing scorecard evaluated major chocolate and consumer goods companies on their actual performance in eliminating deforestation and human rights violations from their operations. Mondelez received an “F,” the lowest grade, for failing to hold bad actors in its supply chain to account, failing to demonstrate free, prior, and informed consent from affected communities, and failing to have independent verification of its own “No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation” commitment. This is not a fringe environmental group’s opinion. It is a documented, criteria-based assessment that found Mondelez’s environmental commitments to be functionally meaningless.
https://www.norc.org/research/projects/assessing-child-labor-in-west-africa-cocoa-farming.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/19/million-child-laborers-chocolate-supply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_cocoa_production
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/child-labor-cocoa
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