Nestlé, the world's largest food manufacturer, has announced it will tackle the problem of child labour and exploitation in the cultivation of cocoa.
The multi-billion dollar company aims to license certain stages within the cultivation and distribution of raw cocoa in order to track its origins and discern whether its goods have been tainted by child labour.
“It is clear that the way cocoa is cultivated today - in the type of environment that it is done with the use of child labour with the number of intermediaries in the supply chain - is not sustainable,” Nestle vice president of Operations, Jose Lopez, told the BBC.
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But campaigners are sceptical about the pledge, saying the chocolate industry has made similar promises before with little follow through.
“The big chocolate companies including Nestle need to apologise for the fact that they didn't keep their first promise,” Steve Chalke from Stop the Traffik said.
“And they need to tell us why we should trust them to keep their promise this time.”
