I found a new (to me) vegan chocolate brand in a North London shop today and was initially rather excited.
It looked like an interesting new addition to the vegan landscape, but when I got home and started looking more closely at the packaging, I noticed something that changed my enthusiasm rather quickly. The chocolate is made in Israel.
Read more below.
What’s the issue with chocolate made by an Israeli company?
I generally avoid buying products from Israeli brands because I believe there are wider ethical questions about supporting businesses operating within an economy and state structure connected to the occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
This isn’t simply about whether a company manufactures weapons or has a direct contract with the military. Businesses operate within a national economy, contribute to its commercial life, and can benefit from the systems and infrastructure maintained by the state. The relationship between business, government, and military mobilisation is particularly difficult to ignore in Israel.
I started looking into 7th Heaven, which is known as Panda in Israel, and came across a social media post from its founder.
In the months following 7th October 2023, the founder explained that members of the team had been called up for military reserve duty and that the company had sent chocolate to Israeli households as a gesture of solidarity.
I appreciate that businesses and their employees have their own experiences of the events of October 2023, but these are not details I can simply overlook when deciding which companies deserve my support. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The relationship between civilian life, economic activity, and the machinery of the Israeli state deserves scrutiny, particularly when the consequences for Palestinians have been so devastating.
There is another detail I discovered while researching the company. One of the leading investors in Panda’s international expansion as 7th Heaven is American entrepreneur David Schottenstein. He led a $3 million investment round in the company in 2023. Schottenstein was sentenced to one year and one day in prison in March of that year after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in an insider trading scheme. That particular piece of corporate history certainly doesn’t make me any more interested in buying the chocolate!
7th Heaven promotes a number of ethical credentials, including the use of fairly traded cocoa ingredients and vegan production. I am not dismissing the importance of those commitments. Removing dairy from chocolate is a positive thing, and fairer sourcing of ingredients matters. But ethical consumption cannot begin and end with whether a product contains animal ingredients or whether its cocoa is fairly traded.
We also have to consider where products are made, who owns the businesses, where investment comes from, and what wider systems our spending helps sustain.
I know there is no such thing as perfectly ethical consumption and I am not suggesting that everyone has the time or resources to investigate every product we pick up in a supermarket. But I do think it is worth asking questions and making informed choices where we can.
A chocolate bar can be completely vegan and still leave me with serious ethical concerns. I won’t be buying 7th Heaven again and I hope more people will look beyond the vegan label when deciding which businesses they want to support.
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