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"Big Chocolate" is a pejorative business term assigned to multi-national chocolate food producers, much akin to the terms assigned to "Big Oil" and "Big Tobacco".
According to Asamoah and Estis, "Big Chocolate" comprises
At the core of the chocolate debate across Europe, parts of Asia and the United States is the definition of chocolate itself, and whether percentages of cocoa in production should render some candies unable to carry the chocolate food definition. Currently the United States, the European Union and Russia do not allow vegetable fats as ingredients of products labeled as chocolate.
At issue also is the ability to replace cocoa butter or dairy components of chocolate with cheaper vegetable fats or PGPR, thereby reducing the quantity of actual cocoa in the finished product while creating an arguably more unhealthy confection.
"Big Chocolate" also refers to the political and social effects of a unifying industry. Consolidated buying enables large cocoa users to wield significant impact in economies, many of them poor African nations, that rely on cocoa production as a critical element of foreign exchange.
In US politics, "Big Chocolate" was invoked scornfully within the debate that erupted around high rates of obesity in the early 2000's. Commentators like Rush Limbaugh, who considered obesity to be a matter of individual choice, predicted sarcastically that the "nanny state" would instead blame "Big Chocolate."
References
Further reading
- which cites Fair Trade Yearbook, 1994 and Cocoa Newsletter, No 3 for its information on Big Chocolate
- — MacDougall asks "is Big Chocolate to blame for the conditions of global chocolate production?"
See also
"Big Chocolate"