Tony’s Chocolonely defends Christmas calendar highlighting cocoa supply chain inequality

Netherlands-based ethically founded chocolate business Tony’s Chocolonely has received complaints over its latest advent calendar window having a missing chocolate- which the company has defended as a ‘conversation starter’ over unequal cocoa supply chains, reports Neill Barston.

The Amsterdam headquartered firm explained the move included placing two calendar slots on the 24th, which it intended to do as a means of highlighting its ongoing campaign on inequality faced by key farming communities in West Africa.

Consequently, the company has repeated its mission to create a ‘slave free chocolate sector’ in repeatedly showcasing the fact 1.5 million children remain exposed to illegal child labour within confectionery supply chains.

However, its latest advent calendars sparked an angry backlash from some parents concerned by the reaction of children on finding ’empty doors’ on the calendars, which some claimed should not be pushing political messages.

In response, the company has said that the deliberate move had been created to raise awareness of its activities, as it continues to seek cross-industry support for sustainable sourcing of cocoa serving the chocolate sector.

Nicola Matthews Tony’s UK Head of Marketing, said: “In Ghana and Ivory Coast, at least 1.56 million children work under illegal conditions on cocoa farms and there are at least 30k victims of modern slavery because the price paid for cocoa is too low. We don’t think that’s ok.

“So.. just like our bars are unequally divided to tell this story of an unequally divided chocolate industry, so too is our calendar. 25 tiny Tony’s split over 24 windows. #8 has no tiny, #9 and #24 have two tinys to illustrate this. There was no particular reason for choosing the #8 and #9 for this. There was no note inside the calendar, but there was a message next to #8 on the left hand side explaining that our calendar was unequally divided.

“Our intention in designing the calendar this way was to increase issue awareness because only when people are aware that there is a bitter side to the chocolate industry can they choose more consciously and demand change from the big chocolate companies perpetuating the problem.

“We’ve had several hundred calls, emails and social media messages over the past few days and our small team has done their best to answer every one with a personal response. Having personal conversations with our fans is important to us as it builds issue awareness and fuels our mission to make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate.”