News
04 February 2025
Wow, look at all the impact you made last year!
Yeppp, the proof is in the pudding!
By sharing our chocolate (and our story!), you’re driving real change for thousands of cocoa-farming families in Ghana + Côte d’Ivoire. Our latest annual FAIR report shows how we’re positively impacting more and more farmers – raising the bar yet again as we work towards ending exploitation in cocoa. And it’s all thanks to you (yes you!) and Tony’s Open Chain’s 19 Mission Allies, aka other cool brands that source their cocoa responsibly, according to Tony’s 5 Sourcing Principles.
Together, you helped us buy a whopping 14.74 billion ethical cocoa beans via Tony’s Open Chain, our collaborative sourcing initiative. Here’s *exactly* what that means..
you paid 20,296 farmers a higher price so they can achieve a living income
That’s 2,556 more than last year! Every single farmer who sells their beans to Tony’s Open Chain benefits from Tony’s 5 Sourcing Principles, which are designed to tackle the root cause of exploitation in cocoa – poverty. And it all starts with paying farmers the Living Income Reference Price (LIRP) long-term to enable them to earn a living income.
In 2023/24, we paid 44% above the main crop farmgate price set by the government in Côte d’Ivoire and 18% above the main farmgate price in Ghana. While this made sure that farmers supplying to Tony’s Open Chain earn more than the average cocoa farmer in these two countries, enabling them to earn a living income relies heavily on the industry adopting our proven sourcing model. Only by doing so can more farmers sell more beans at this higher price for the long term.
you enabled 1,718 children to get out of child labour
The bitter truth about chocolate? It’s riddled with child labour.. As you’re reading this, there are about 1.56 million children working illegally in the cocoa industry – that’s 1 in every 2 children in cocoa-growing households. Tony’s exists to change that. By tracking all our cocoa from bean to bar, we know exactly where it comes from, which is crucial for identifying and remediating child labour cases on cocoa farms.
While the industry average stands at an alarming 46.7%, this year’s figures demonstrate that Tony’s 5 Sourcing Principles effectively reduce child labour rates, further decreasing prevalence at long-term partner cooperatives from 4.4 to 3.9% in just the 12 months! This 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 labour go down.
Though Tony’s is making important strides to lower the prevalence of child labour, it is unfortunately not realistic 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 5 Sourcing Principles.
Because it’s only together that we’ll end exploitation in cocoa – bar by bar, bite by bite.
you made sure 26,536 cocoa farms were deforestation-free
Tastes sweet, eh?! This means that 99.95% of Tony’s Open Chain’s supply chain is 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.
It also means that our carbon footprint is much lower than the industry average, as deforestation is the biggest driver of cocoa-related emissions for most chocolate companies. Cocoa sourced via Tony’s Open Chain had 95% lower emissions in Côte d’Ivoire and 87% lower emissions in Ghana than most other cocoa from the same region.
.. That’s it? No way! There are loads more facts & figures we’d love to share with you – and they’re all in our latest annual FAIR report.
Here’s to making lots (and lots) more impact this year as we keep growing our movement for change! Because together, we will break the mould to end exploitation in cocoa. Bar by bar, bite by bite.
Are you in?
