when Tony’s Chocolonely started up based on slave free, the financial journals were doing headlines like “will they be able to survive this bold new direction?”
They eventually found the cocoa market to be almost impossible to separate from slavery. They still do their best, which is a lot more than most, but they don’t make any guarantees
They have some argument for doing business with one of the largest processors who’s not the worst but not provably ethical. Discouraging.
At Tony’s, we exist so make all chocolate 100% slave-free, not just our own. That means climbing into the lion’s den and tackling change from within. It means getting to the root of the problem and paving the way for others by proving the scalability of our solutions.
Surprised that the processor, Barry Callebaut, is down for Tony to publish such blunt criticism of them. It’s like “don’t worry, Barry’s made a totally separate production line for us - only the Barry’s non-Tony production line contains the slave blood!”
like Nestlé getting out of a child slavery lawsuit because none of the slavery happened in the US?
Sometimes I wonder why mass shootings happen so often at universities and not at such HQs.
Fuck it, from where I come from: people in agriculture get smacked just by existing or trying to build common cause with “let’s end hunger in the world”. I’m with you, salutations from America Latina ! And let’s make those fuckers get what they deserve.
The biggest problem with claiming to be slave free is that you need to own the farms to make sure, which means the locals don’t get those profits either.
Whittaker’s is slave free but they can’t advertise it because they support the local economies … which means they can’t be reasonably sure slaves aren’t used when they’re not looking.
I have yet to see proof that Tony’s is actually slavery free. And if it isn’t (as in “we are doing oUr BeSt”) then why the hell would I buy from them instead of… not buying chooclate?
I’m parsing this, but here is their explanation:
https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-were-100-slave-free
why is it in quotes
Because slavery is so prevalent in cocoa farms that it’s impossible to guarantee that no slave labor was used. Even if they make an effort use ethical sources they still can’t make that guarantee.
John Oliver covered this on Last Week Tonight. tl;dw Cocoa is almost exclusively grown in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, two West African countries. Most of these farms are family run and there are millions of them. All the Cocoa they produce is purchased by a few companies who dictate price. Because they buy at such a low price, the only way these farms make money is if they force children in their families to work the farm for no compensation. Ie. Child slavery.
The worst part is that the organizations that audit the farms in an effort to reduce slavery fail spectacularly. The Farms receive notice of the audit and what they hope not to find in advance, and then the audits only occur at most every 6 months but more likely every few years. A documentary team of students took a trip out to a few farms that receive these audits and found Child Slavery immediately.
After watching that episode I started going out and buying, Tony Chocolonely. Gotta support good businesses.
Sadly I don’t know how slave free Tony Chocolonely is, I was reading up about this the other day and they have been removed from the slave free chocolate list due to ties with big coco.
Article talking about it’s removal - https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/02/16/Tony-s-Chocolonely-axed-from-Slave-Free-Chocolate-list-defends-ties-with-Barry-Callebaut
Slave free chocolate list - https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/ethical-chocolate-companies/
Hope this is helpful :)
Y’all need to read about the chocolate wars and the trade of it if you’re surprised about this. Now is also the one time in history where chocolate has been it’s most ethical and least slavery driven. Chocolate has never been 100% ethical
Oh the printers always screw that up.
“We’re Slavers. Free Chocolate!”
There, fixed.
Lionel Hutz
