Vendor of the Month: Tony’s Chocolonely
ABOUT THEIR CHOCOLATE: Tony's Chocolonely is a Dutch confectionery company founded in 2005. With incredibly tasty chocolate, they lead by example to show the world that chocolate can be made differently. By following Tony’s Sourcing Principles for slave-free cocoa, it’s possible to make slave-free chocolate and be commercially successful.
The chocolate supply chain starts with millions of cocoa farmers and ends with billions of consumers. But what about the piece in the middle? This piece is dominated by a handful of chocolate giants (who we call big choco) that profit from keeping the purchase price of cocoa as low as possible. There’s nothing wrong with a profitable business, of course. After all, companies would go bust without it, that’s just common sense. What’s not so great, however, is when that profit comes at all costs. And in this case, profit comes at the cost of exploitation of farmers at the beginning of the supply chain.
Cocoa is grown in places all around the equator like Asia and South America, but more than a whopping 60% of the world's cocoa comes from two mid-sized countries in West Africa: Ghana and Ivory Coast. These two countries are also where the problems in the cocoa industry are at their worst. Most farmers there have only a small plot of land and earn just 78 cents a day from the crops they grow there. That amount isn’t just low by our standards, the living income is set at $2.16 per person, per day for Ghanains and for Ivorians it’s set at $2.49 per person per day. Farmers just aren’t paid enough, even with certification premiums.
