Finnish Candy With A Racist Twist

"Controversial racial image to be dropped from liquorice wrapper" -- The end of an era came on Friday when the sweets manufacturing company Cloetta Fazer announced the new design of the wrapper of its liquorice sticks, which should appear on store shelves in April.

The company says that the aim of the new look is to maintain a humorous retro-style. The product itself will not change, but the wrapper will no longer have the long-standing caricature of a black person, which has been a basic theme on Fazers' liquorice packaging since 1927.

The figure had long been criticised as perpetuating a negative racial stereotype.

Reactions to the packaging went beyond Finland in the mid-1990s, when a British anti-racist organisation drew attention to the figure.

Last winter British MEP Claude Moraes criticised the figure, threatening to put a question to the European Commission, and the Council of Ministers on the propriety of the liquorice packaging.

In January 2007 the manufacturer announced that the offending figure would be removed from the wrapper.

Reacting to the objections, an Internet petition was launched in Finland to defend the Laku-Pekka character, as it was popularly called.

Before changing the packaging Fazer consulted with Finland's Consumer Agency and the Ombudsman for Minorities on the matter.

Both said that the racial presentation can be seen as violating the marketing rules of the consumer protection law, international regulations on advertising, and equality legislation.

Fazer's liquorice is not the only product of the Finnish sweets industry that has altered its marketing for reasons of racial sensitivity. In 2001 Brunberg changed its traditional creme-filled chocolate sweet formerly called Neekerinsuukko ("Negro Kiss") to simply "Suukko" ("Kiss"). [source: HELSINGIN SANOMAT]

Fazer lakupötkö got new clothes.

"Laku-Pekka was fired," 29 February 2008--Fazer Confectionery Company waives lakritsipötköpaperia koristaneesta Laku-Pekka-character.Published on Friday in a new wrapping is certainly still the former resembling the silhouette of the character's cookie-shaped pattern.

Fazer, according to a new wrapping to update the licorice "reflect today's values." Fazer's traditional lakritsihahmo has resulted in allegations of racism, even down to the EU Parliament.

Fazer produced a new wrapping paper together with design agency Tango.

(http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/200802297318773_uu.shtml)

In Finland, the name originated from Germany, and they were named "Negro Kisses" in 1951. In 2001, their name was changed to "Brunberg's Kisses", after the manufacturer, for largely the same reasons as in Denmark.[24]

Negerzoenen--In the Netherlands the name is Negerzoenen ("Negro kisses") though some companies have changed the name to the more politically correct Zoenen ("Kisses") reportedly due to claims of racism, similar to the German case where Negerkuss was renamed to Schokoküsse,[25] while actually the name-change was made for marketing reasons.[26]

Neekerinsuukot (Negerkyss)

In Finland a chocolate covered marshmallow treat went by the name “negerkyss” (negro kiss) up until 2001. Although the name changed to “Brunberg Kisses” the chocolate company still uses the offensive logo of two stereotypical African cartoon characters barely clothed with bright red lips.

WHY ARE THESE IMAGES SO OFFENSIVE?

The insensitivity to the people who toil in the fields to bring most of the key ingredients of the confectionery industry were/are byproducts of the triangular trade that enslaved and exported literally millions of African human beings.  Certainly the expropriation of land, natural resources and labor  of the Americas, Africa, Pacific Islands, and the Caribbean Islands should not be negated.  If you ever took an economics class, you'd know the three factors of capitalism.

Black and brown labor harvests and grows every key confectionery ingredient.  

Cocoa trees require constant warmth and rainfall to thrive. They need to be shaded from the strong tropical sun and sheltered from the wind. Cocoa trees grow only in tropical regions of Africa, Asia, South America and Central America, within 15 to 20 degrees of the equator.

Cocoa trees grow best in the shade of other trees. When very young, they require deep shade. As they mature, they require more filtered sunlight. Farmers plant a shade umbrella of taller trees such as breadfruit, Para rubber, laurel and various legumes to shelter their cocoa trees. Shade-grown cocoa trees can produce fruit for 75 to 100 years or more.

Top producing cocoa countries include:  Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador and Malaysia.

Cocoa is harvested by children without a childhood.  

• The UK has the seventh highest consumption of chocolate in the world. The average Brit eats 17.49lbs of chocolate per year (Source: The World Atlas of Chocolate). 
• Switzerland takes the top spot. 40% of the chocolate eaten in the world is consumed in Europe.
• 66% of chocolate is consumed between meals with 22% of all chocolate consumed between 8pm and midnight (Source: The World Atlas of Chocolate).
• Britain really is a nation of chocolate lovers. In Britain we eat an estimated 660,900 tons of chocolate a year, an average of 11kg per person per year. This equates to about 3 bars a week.
• The UK chocolate industry is worth £3.6billion (Source: Specialty Food, 2008) and sales of chocolate just keep growing and growing, with an estimated 17% increase in sales over the next five years.
• 8,000 new chocolate products were introduced worldwide last year – meaning that a new chocolate treat was launched almost every hour of every day in 2008 (Source: Mintel Global New Products Database, February 2009).
• In two years (2005 – 2007) sales of chocolate doubled in the UK. And the biggest growth was in dark chocolate. Sales in 2007 reached £85m (Source: Mintel, April 2010).

Sugar cane - and the slave trade--After the discovery of the New World, vast fields of crops such as sugar cane were grown to feed the European empires. Before long, British and French plantations in the West Indies began to dominate. British west coast ports such as Bristol and Liverpool thrived on the sugar cane industry and refineries and packaging factories were set up. But this went hand in hand with a much more sinister trade of the time - the transatlantic slave trade.

Slave routes--A great deal of labour was required to produce large quantities of sugar on relatively small areas of land: the slave trade supplied it. Ships, laden with goods, left British ports destined for West Africa in exchange for people. And so began the most notorious period in the histories of Bristol and Liverpool.

Tightly packed into ships, slaves were sailed from Africa across the Atlantic to the West Indies. During the journey they were often chained down and kept in horrendous conditions. Any slaves who had managed to survive the journey were taken to shore and sold to plantation owners where they spent the rest of their lives working to produce goods like sugar cane. This became known as the 'Triangular Trade' so-called because the route usually taken between Europe, West Africa and the West Indies formed a triangle.

Harvesting Vanilla Beans

Harvesting Vanilla Beans

Harvesting Vanilla Beans






Harvesting Nutmeg



Harvesting Nutmeg





Harvesting Cinnamon