Alcohol and Drugs History Society

German chocolate market saturated

The market for chocolate is saturated in Germany where per capita consumption is almost 20 pounds annually. About a third of German chocolate is exported. The three countries that are the leading consumers of chocolate are the USA and two much smaller states Germany and France. Most of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa, particularly in the Ivory Coast which sells a majority of its beans to the Germans. German chocolate makers hope to develop markets in India and China where little chocolate is consumed today. In Germany itself the growth area is dark chocolate. For more, see here.

Temperance and alcohol in French West Africa (article)

Owen White, "Drunken States: Temperance and French Rule in Cote d'Ivoire, 1908-1916," Journal of Social History 40/3 (Spring 2007): 663-684.

Temperance in colonial Ivory Coast (article)

Owen White, "Drunken States: Temperance and French Rule in Cote d'Ivoire, 1908-1916," Journal of Social History 40/3 (Spring 2007): 663-684.

Alleged child slavery in Ivory Coast cocoa industry

To dramatize alleged child slavery in the Ivory Coast cocoa industry, a Dutch journalist asked to be jailed for consuming chocolate. For more, see here.

Cocoa in Ivory Coast

For the AP, Todd Pitman reports on the massive cocoa sales which finance most everything--including both sides of Ivory Coast's civil war.

On the streets of this skyscraper-lined West African metropolis, tension and rumors of an imminent return to war are always thick in the air — and so too, is the sweet smell of chocolate. Despite more than half a decade of coups, fighting and failed peace deals, a $2 billion a year cocoa industry is a booming in Ivory Coast, producing more of the raw material for chocolate than any other country on the planet.