🍫 Good Business #10: Tony's Chocolonely

“The chocolate we produce is a vehicle to spread the word” — Ben Greensmith, UK & I Country Manager

I hope you are having a good week. This week, chocolate! Tony’s Chocolonely. Seriously, they have one of the most impressive impact reports I’ve seen. Worth spending some time reading it.

Note

I'm doing a little change to this newsletter, splitting it in two:

1. This usual case study, Good Business, will continue to be delivered once a week.

2. The sections Good Bits and Tools & Companies will be moved to a new once-a-week edition, called 121ForGood.

121ForGood will be the place where I'll be sharing good findings. Resources like books, podcasts, articles, tv shows, etc.

4 different resources ( 1 / 2 / 1 ) per edition.

Right to the point.

121.

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😍 Spreading Love

“Increased access to electricity in both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and increased access to safe drinking water in Côte d’Ivoire. Good healthcare coverage has become available in both countries since 21/22.”

“3/4 of the child labor cases detected at our long-term partner cooperatives on
1 October 2021 were closed by 30 September 2022.”

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🌰 Good business in a nutshell

• Company - Tony’s Chocolonely

• What they do - Trying to make chocolate 100% slave-free the norm

• How they started - Asking to be arrested. Teun van de Keuken consumed chocolates which cocoa had been harvested by children slaves. This act draw the whole media’s attention and he decided to create a slave-free chocolate brand.

• Areas of Impact - Poverty Alleviation, Zero Hunger, Reduced Inequalities, Climate Change

• Saving the world - 8,921 farmers earning a living income

• How they make money - Selling chocolate bars

• Revenue - €133 million (2021/22)

• Who started everything - Teun van de Keuken

📖 The long version

🧩 Problems

• 1.56 million children work under illegal conditions in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

• The average cocoa farmer in the Ivory Coast earns €0.78 a day.

💡 How they started | How they are going

Asking to be arrested. Journalist Teun van de Keuken consumed chocolates which cocoa had been harvested by children slaves. This act draws the whole media’s attention.

He then approached Nestlé, which was the main sponsor of the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory“ film, to produce a slave-free chocolate bar.

Taking no as the answer was his motivation to create a slave-free chocolate brand.

*Section extracted from The Chocolate Case film

🌎 Saving the world

8,672,000 kg of chocolate sold

8,921 farmers earning a living income

€3.8 million paid in premium — Tony’s premium to enable farmers a living income

☄️ Impact Model

Tony’s mission is to make 100% slave-free the norm in the chocolate industry. The mission is guided by 5 principles:

Traceable cocoa beans • know who produces the beans and how (social and environmental conditions) the beans are produced.

Higher price • additional premium on top of the current price + certification premium to ensure farmers earn a living income.

Strong farmers • professionalise farming cooperatives to reduce economic inequality.

The long-term • at least 5 years of sales guaranteed.

Improved quality and productivity • invest in skills to grow cocoa, producing more and better-quality beans.

💰 Let’s talk money *

€133 million (2021/22)

💪 Join the cause

https://join.tonyschocolonely.com

🎬 Who started everything

Teun van de Keuken

2003 - Journalist Teun is shocked after reading an article about children slaves in cocoa farming
2003 - As a way to draw attention, Teun eats tons of chocolate bars and asks to be arrested (he’d consumed cocoa harvested by illegal child labour).
2004 - He is refused to be prosecuted.
2005 - He decides to draw the public’s attention by leading by example: he produces 5,000 chocolate bars which isn’t enough. 13,000 bars are sold!