Can chocolate be cheap, fair and profitable at the same time?

This engaging, interactive lesson places students inside the global chocolate supply chain and challenges them to explore how money, power and responsibility are shared between cocoa farmers, plantation owners, manufacturers, retailers and consumers.

Working in teams, students take on different roles, each with their own goal, level of power and hidden problem. They must negotiate how the £1 cost of a chocolate bar should be divided while responding to unexpected events, including crop disease, falling cocoa prices, retailer pressure, unsafe working conditions and media investigations.

The game is completed in two rounds:

Round 1 – Business as Usual:
Students experience an unequal supply chain in which some participants have significantly more power and profit than others.

Round 2 – Fairtrade Introduced:
Students consider how minimum prices, farmer premiums, safer working conditions and restrictions on child labour could improve the system, while also recognising the possible impact of higher prices on businesses and consumers.

The lesson encourages lively discussion, negotiation, decision-making and critical thinking. It provides students with a memorable way to understand exploitation, inequality, ethical consumer choices and the strengths and limitations of Fairtrade.

The resource includes:

• A ready-to-teach PowerPoint presentation
• Clear lesson objectives and challenge instructions
• Five supply-chain role cards
• Individual goals, earnings and hidden problems
• Six event and dilemma cards
• Business-as-usual and Fairtrade game rounds
• Printable 1p, 5p and 10p money cards
• Discussion and reflection questions
• Paired verbal plenary activities
• A Fairer Chocolate Bar homework task

Students will learn to:

• Explain how chocolate moves through a global supply chain
• Identify who has the most and least power
• Explore why cocoa farmers and workers may be exploited
• Analyse how risks, costs and profits are distributed
• Evaluate whether Fairtrade can reduce exploitation
• Consider the consequences of ethical and financial decisions

This resource is ideal for an end-of-year KS3 lesson, enrichment activity or cross-curricular session. It could be used within Food Technology, Geography, Citizenship, Business, PSHE or sustainability education.

Suitable for Years 7–9 and designed to promote collaboration, debate and active participation.