The bitter truth about chocolate? It’s riddled with child labour.. As you’re reading this, about 1.56 million children* are engaged in child labor in Ghana + Côte d’Ivoire. Tony’s exists to change that. By tracing all our cocoa from bean to bar, we know where it comes from, which is crucial for identifying and remediating child labor cases on cocoa farms.
*NORC report, 2020
At our longest-term partner co-ops, child labor rates have stayed below 5% for 5 years running, and fell from 4.4% to 3.9% in the last 12 months. That shows the importance of long-term commitments, which is why we work with farmers for at least 5 years. ’Cause the longer we collaborate with co-ops, the more we see child labor go down.
Though Tony’s is making important strides to lower the prevalence of child labor, it is unfortunately not realiztic to expect the elimination of exploitation in the cocoa supply chain until we cover a much larger piece of the pie/chunk of the market. That’s why we invite all other chocolate brands to source their cocoa via Tony’s Open Chain, according to Tony’s Sourcing Principles.
Because it’s only together that we can fight exploitation in cocoa – bar by bar, bite by bite.
Tastes sweet, eh?! This means that in 2023/24, 99.95% of Tony’s Open Chain’s supply chain was verified deforestation-free. While we’re working hard to resolve the last 0.05% (= 14 farms), we are super proud of this achievement as it reinforces our commitment to protecting forests in West Africa.
Here’s to making lots (and lots) more impact this year as we keep growing our movement for change! Because together, we can break the mold and fight exploitation in cocoa. Bar by bar. Bite by bite.