As part of its four and a half year independent assessment of company efforts to address this abuse in West Africa, Tulane University found that there are still hundreds of thousands of children involved in hazardous work conditions. The research team's top recommendation for chocolate companies is "to scale up its consumption -- and publicly commit to new procurement targets -- of product certified cocoa, specifically in the U.S. market." The rally at Hershey's Times Square store called on Hershey to do just that by starting to use Fair Trade Certified cocoa.

The chocolate industry was made aware these abuses in 2001. The Chocolate Manufactures Association pledged to eliminate slave and child labor from cocoa production. Many of Hershey's competitors, like Mars and Cadbury, have begun to implement policies to purge child labor from their supply chains. Cadbury, its parent company Kraft Foods, Blommer Chocolate Company, and Mars Inc., and about half a dozen other major chocolate manufactures, have all agreed to use cocoa certified by independent monitors. 

Shannon Singer: it's a canned answer, they don't give a sh!T

Susan Rankin: If Walmart has SUCH a good relationship with the Bangladeshian Government then use it to get all charges against the labor leaders dropped. Otherwise, we will boycott Walmart. Thanks for your great humanitarian concern Walmart.

Cosi has not made a commitment to using cocoa that is Fair Trade Certified and it has almost no information publicly available about its policies to ensure that its food products are not linked to extreme labor rights abuses. That is why concerned consumers are calling on Cosi to start using Fair Trade Certified cocoa for its chocolate products, starting with s'mores.