“We are powerless to alter the chocolate industry on our own.”
Tony’s Chocolonely is an impact company that prioritizes social impact over profit in the production of chocolate. Our group’s goal is to completely eliminate slavery from the chocolate industry. Not just chocolate from us, but chocolate from all over the world.
Three journalists from the Dutch TV program “Keuringsdienst van Waarde” founded Tony’s Chocolonely in 2005 after learning that the biggest chocolate producers in the world were purchasing cocoa from plantations that practiced modern slavery and child labor. Poverty is the main driver of this; some cocoa farmers are forced to force their children to labor on the farms because they are not paid enough for their cocoa.
Tony’s Chocolonely has since committed itself to eradicating and bringing attention to the issue of inequality in the chocolate sector. Tony sets an exemplary example for others to follow by forging close, long-lasting bonds with cocoa growers in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, paying them more, and cooperating to address the root causes of child labor and modern slavery.
Distinguished by establishing norms
There were no chocolate brands that used traceable cocoa or gave farmers enough money to make a living wage when Tony’s Chocolonely was established in 2005. Back then, it was difficult to fully trace even Fairtrade.
Tony’s has led the way in treating cocoa farmers more fairly throughout the value chain for the past 17 years, and many other brands and businesses have been motivated to follow suit.The vibrant packaging really makes a statement, in addition to the ingredients that are sourced ethically. Known to Team Tony’s as Klink, Arjen Klinkenberg created the original Tony’s wrapper. He picked a startling red wrapper for the milk chocolate bar to highlight the troubling problem of modern slavery in the cocoa supply chain.
Since we are a challenger brand at heart, we never use brown and instead use rainbow-colored bars to draw attention to them. Since chocolate is a product that people buy on impulse, it’s critical that customers see us on the shelves.
Setting a moral example
Tony’s Chocolonely sets a good example for the chocolate industry by demonstrating that tasty chocolate can be produced and a mass-market brand can be established without taking advantage of people at the beginning of the supply chain.
Since 2012, we have been refining our five sourcing criteria, which have now been demonstrated to significantly lower the industry average of 46.5 percent child labor to 4.3 percent.
Being 100% traceable is the primary sourcing principle. From the cooperative to the finished product, our cocoa can be tracked all the way. The majority of large chocolate manufacturers deal with cocoa as a commodity and are unaware of the origins or farming practices of the crop.
We treat the 15,000 farmers in nine cooperatives in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire with equal corporate respect and engage in direct trade with them. Our bean tracker technology allows us to monitor our beans at every stage of their travels. In order to make sure there is no unlawful deforestation, full traceability also enables us to GPS map the farms from which we source, covering every farm with the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System.
Poverty is the main driver of illicit labor in the chocolate sector, thus our second sourcing principle calls on all chocolate companies to pay a premium. Tony’s pays the Living Income Reference Price for cocoa, which was created in collaboration with Fairtrade. In order to guarantee that farmers can make a livable wage, we further pay the Tony’s premium and the Fairtrade premium on top of the farmgate price. This indicates that Tony’s is paying between 76% and 82% more for our cocoa this chocolate season than the farmgate price; this further demonstrates how little the majority of chocolate businesses, who typically just pay the farmgate price, are spending for their cocoa in order to maximize their profits.
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Agricultural Empowerment
Working closely with farmer cooperatives to help farmers become more professional and powerful in the supply chain is the focus of sourcing principles three and four. We do this by partnering with them for a minimum of five years. With long-term relationships, cocoa producers are able to plan ahead and make future investments, including planting new cocoa trees or replacing outdated agricultural equipment.
In order to maximize their income from the crop, we also assist farmers with agroforestry measures that enhance the quality and yield of their cocoa.
These five sourcing principles operate in a sensitive system, thus they must all be applied in tandem.
Even if these theories are now validated, we are powerless to alter the chocolate sector on our own. To help other cocoa-buying organizations join us, we have made our five sourcing guidelines publicly available through Tony’s Open Chain. As we work together to make all chocolate 100% slave free, we’ve already welcomed amazing mission friends like Aldi, Albert Heijn, and Ben & Jerry’s, and we look forward to welcoming more in the years to come.
Our method or the superior method
We are fully committed to achieving our goal of making chocolate that is 100% slave-free the standard. To achieve that, we must establish ourselves as a respectable chocolate brand and gain the attention of large chocolate manufacturers, who must accept the viability and scalability of our sourcing strategy.
We must compete in all significant chocolate markets if we want to expand, but we will never stop trying to introduce items that are “only Tony’s”—we don’t want to blend in. Thus, in the upcoming years, don’t be surprised to see even more wild flavors and delectable Tony’s products in a ton of new categories.