The Archbishop of York called for a boycott last night of all chocolate that is not certified as Fairtrade.

Dr John Sentamu, whose archiepiscopal seat is in the same city as the confectioner Nestlé Rowntree, said that buying only Fairtrade chocolate would help to end the “21st-century iniquity” of child labour.

The Archbishop, who has recently returned from a visit to Jamaica, one of the countries on which the slave trade had a great impact, was delivering a public lecture to hundreds of church and other community members in Hull, the constituency of the abolitionist MP, William Wilberforce.

Citing research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, he said that although child labour was prohibited in Britain there was a connection with Britain’s manufacturers because of the conditions under which cocoa was produced.

According to the Stop the Traffik campaign for an end to modern slavery, more than 12,000 trafficked children are working on Ivory Coast plantations to produce 43 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans.

Dr Sentamu’s intervention comes just days after Gap, the high street clothing chain, promised to stop selling thousands of items where child labour may have been used to make them.

The Archbishop launched a “chocolate challenge”, in which he asked consumers “to buy only Fairtrade chocolate from now on”.

He said: “If you can’t find it in your favourite shop, ask to see the manager and say that you will only buy goods which are not produced by slave labour. Say you want to trade fairly. If you keep that promise, you could be playing your part in ending a 21st-century iniquity.”

Dr Sentamu did not name individual manufacturers, but his chocolate boycott is in line with reports by Stop the Traffik, which claims that chocolate certified as Fairtrade is the only chocolate guaranteed to be produced without child labour. A spokesman for his office said that he had deliberately not used the word “boycott” because he wanted individuals to make a “positive choice”. But he did want them to choose to buy “only Fairtrade”. The spokesman added: “Most people are chocoholics. The Archbishop is asking them to do something, not about their addiction, but their preferences.”

The campaign is the latest blow to Nestlé Rowntree. The company, which manufactures chocolate and other confectionery, is already under attack for plans to move its production of Smarties to Germany with the loss of more than 600 jobs. York’s other chocolate factory, Terry’s, was shut down last year by the US giant Kraft.

The irony behind Dr Sentamu’s assault on Britain’s chocolate industry is that most of the leading chocolate makers in Britain, such as the Fry, Rowntree and Cadbury families, were Quakers, many of whom were at the fore of the campaign to end slavery.

However, Cadbury owns Green & Black’s, the makers of a popular range of Fairtrade chocolate. Nestlé also has a stake in an independent supplier of Fairtrade chocolate and produces its own Fairtrade coffee.

A Nestlé Rowntree spokesman declined to comment on the use of child labour in cocoa production.

Sweet taste

— The British eat more chocolate than any other nation in Europe. Latest figures show that we account for 32 per cent of the total market value in Europe, estimated at £3.7 billion

— Cadbury and Fry & Sons started making chocolate in the 1840s

— KitKat is the favourite chocolate bar in Britain: 47 eaten per second

— Scientists in Finland found that women who ate chocolate daily during pregnancy were more likely to say that they had happy babies

— Green and Black’s was founded in 1991. Its decision to pay a “fair price” to cocoa farmers in 1994 earned them Britain’s first Fairtrade mark.

Sources: New Scientist, confectionerynews.com, associatedcontent.com, BBC website

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