The gummy bear came over the mountain
By Péter MARTON
This recent ARD report about German gummy bear maker Haribo is a must watch for those interested in where components of different products that may be part of our lives are sourced from. Normally you find things once you search for them. Here the searching may come after the finding as the findings presented in the report may lead to some soul-searching in the end... All those cute little gummy bears you have eaten. They. Are. Not. Coming. Back.
There are all sorts of issues here.
Gummy bears being made of up to 46% sugar, to start with.
And then. Dreadful conditions in a supplier's pig farm, inside Germany, so you don't need to go all inter- and transnational to run into first-rate horror along supply/value chains. The pigs are not simply held in dire conditions. These are conditions that make you wonder if the owner of the pig farm actually hates these animals. That's where at least some of the gelatin in the gummy bears is coming from.
And... again, dreadful conditions, in Brazil this time, where labourers harvest carnauba wax, another key ingredient, key to the good looks of a gummy bear. Child labour is employed, illegal labour is employed, there are no adequate water supplies for the labourers, no proper living quarters, the work itself is fraught with hazards and... is very hard work in the first place.
The people doing the harvesting are not employed by Haribo, mind you, but further down the supply/value chain, and they deliver the wax to big shipping companies that then distribute it to export markets. Germany takes a 10 to 15% share of those exports.
Beyond all the initial horror that may be felt over this, one needs to understand that similar findings are out there to be found in the case of other products too. Follow the trace of coltan, palm oil, seafood, textiles, wood or sand (I could give you other examples here) and you won't be spared of spending some time thinking about having unwittingly fuelled armed conflicts, enjoyed the fruits of slave labour, and flushed sustainability down the toilet yourself.
In fact I can easily imagine a science fiction/fantasy/slipstream short story of sorts based on the idea of a protagonist who can sense where the components of different products are coming from. Said protagonist walks into a supermarket, touches some things, starts to scream, drops on the floor in agony. Maybe says "Oh, the pain of the world!" for dramatic effect before collapsing on the spot.
This would not be a very good short story, of course.
The purpose of its being bad as it is, however, is exactly to make one wonder about the shitloads of connotations the term "human civilisation" can have.
This recent ARD report about German gummy bear maker Haribo is a must watch for those interested in where components of different products that may be part of our lives are sourced from. Normally you find things once you search for them. Here the searching may come after the finding as the findings presented in the report may lead to some soul-searching in the end... All those cute little gummy bears you have eaten. They. Are. Not. Coming. Back.
There are all sorts of issues here.
Gummy bears being made of up to 46% sugar, to start with.
And then. Dreadful conditions in a supplier's pig farm, inside Germany, so you don't need to go all inter- and transnational to run into first-rate horror along supply/value chains. The pigs are not simply held in dire conditions. These are conditions that make you wonder if the owner of the pig farm actually hates these animals. That's where at least some of the gelatin in the gummy bears is coming from.
And... again, dreadful conditions, in Brazil this time, where labourers harvest carnauba wax, another key ingredient, key to the good looks of a gummy bear. Child labour is employed, illegal labour is employed, there are no adequate water supplies for the labourers, no proper living quarters, the work itself is fraught with hazards and... is very hard work in the first place.
The people doing the harvesting are not employed by Haribo, mind you, but further down the supply/value chain, and they deliver the wax to big shipping companies that then distribute it to export markets. Germany takes a 10 to 15% share of those exports.
Beyond all the initial horror that may be felt over this, one needs to understand that similar findings are out there to be found in the case of other products too. Follow the trace of coltan, palm oil, seafood, textiles, wood or sand (I could give you other examples here) and you won't be spared of spending some time thinking about having unwittingly fuelled armed conflicts, enjoyed the fruits of slave labour, and flushed sustainability down the toilet yourself.
In fact I can easily imagine a science fiction/fantasy/slipstream short story of sorts based on the idea of a protagonist who can sense where the components of different products are coming from. Said protagonist walks into a supermarket, touches some things, starts to scream, drops on the floor in agony. Maybe says "Oh, the pain of the world!" for dramatic effect before collapsing on the spot.
This would not be a very good short story, of course.
The purpose of its being bad as it is, however, is exactly to make one wonder about the shitloads of connotations the term "human civilisation" can have.
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