The Meaningful Reason Behind Tony's Chocolonely's Uneven Slices

Even with there being many chocolate bars out there, there are a few things that jump out about a bar of Tony's. Its eye-catching, colorful packaging and fun flavors are part of its charm and allure. But when holding one of its bars, you notice that they have an essay written on the wrappers discussing slavery in cocoa supply chains. And when you unwrap its bars, you finally notice that instead of neat, rectangular pieces like most other chocolate bars, it contains Tony's off-kilter logo molded into it. It also has a small circle with a broken chain on it.

The pieces almost look randomly made, coming in completely different sizes. Far from just a marketing gimmick, this is done to emphasize how unequal the cocoa supply chain is. Tony's was founded in 2005 as just a fair trade company. Realizing that the cocoa supply chain is massive and incredibly hard to trace, it decided something more had to be done because even though something is "fair trade," it doesn't mean there's no slavery in the supply chain. Tony's eventually pivoted and started paying a premium for cocoa beans in an effort to combat slavery in chocolate.

This is exactly what people wanted: ethical snacks and treats. In 2019, it also launched its own supply chain tracing website called Tony's Open Chain. There you can actually read about all the impacts the company has made year over year. By 2021, Tony's had crossed over $100 million in revenue. Its ubiquity and success are why you really don't need to buy evil chocolate.

Since Tony's makes such a big deal out of its goals, any minor crack in the facade can be chipped away at until a full scandal erupts. In 2021, it was discovered by Tony's that there had been about 1,700 instances of child labor being used in the chocolate it had made. While the company attempted to spin this in a positive light, it's hard to understand how a business that prides itself on ethical practices and supply transparency would let illegal child labor slip into its supply chain. On the one hand, Tony's is right that finding child labor indicates a massive shift in the chocolate industry, as most companies wouldn't have blinked an eye at this before. In a way, the ire the brand received for announcing this is a product of its mission: transparency.

It also speaks to how complicated supply chains really are. But the real controversy for the anti-slavery chocolate activists was that Tony's uses the company Barry Callebaut to process its beans into chocolate liquor to then make into chocolate bars. Barry Callebaut, which is a massive conglomerate in Europe, is well known for using cocoa that comes from child labor, though it says it's working to address this. While Tony's pays to ensure its cacao beans are totally segregated within the processing facilities, the fact that it works so closely with such a company does dull the shine of its image. And it also explains why it was taken off slavefreechocolate.org's list of ethical suppliers.