tony's chocolonely mildly pisses me off every time i eat it. like yeah i get it ur doing a whole symbolism thing about unfairness and whatever, but its actually SO DIFFICULT to eat fucking. gerrymandered chocolate. your symbolism is ruining my chocolate experience.
who approved this.
like. ur already more expensive. i understand this. i am willing to pay more money to have slave-free delicious chocolate. why must you punish me further by making it a goddamn puzzle to break a piece off.
Tony's Chocolonely does not ensure a living wage for cocoa workers in West Africa (see 2020 report by Voice Network).
Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:
transparency about the country of origin for cocoa
if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)
if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")
this isn't perfect, obviously, but it is much more grounded in the rights of workers than the various certifications (e.g. Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, etc.) you'll see on product packaging
I think it should be noted that the Food Empowerment Project specifically only lists companies making "at least one vegan chocolate product" and that they only ask about the companies' vegan chocolates specifically. Their list is not an exhaustive resource for every type of chocolate.
[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]
Before I found that link I was curious as to why I didn't see any Norwegian manufacturers on their list(which makes sense now, as their chocolates are almost exclusively milk chocolate) and looked up where our companies source their chocolate from and found Nidar gets theirs from the Rainforest Alliance and Freia from Cocoa Life, both of which have been under scrutiny for not preventing child labour and not paying farmers a living wage among other things. So it appears Norwegian chocolate is out of the ethical picture.
I stated this in the comments of the post already, but it’d probably be better to add it as a reblog, so it’s more visible and doesn’t need to be restated by anyone else in the future.
So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)
About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)
Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.
If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here:
Below is a list of chocolate companies that only use ethically grown cocoa. Find out how you can tell if the chocolate you are ea
And it doesn’t have the vegan product restriction the other list has, which solves @aloofraven’s issue.
There's misinformation here.
I'm not well-versed in ethical chocolate production but I took a look at some of the sources provided to learn more and found misinformation in this post.
First off, @roninnozlo's claim that Tony's, Nestle, Barry, etc. (the Cocoa Coalition) are lobbying against the EUDR deforestation regulation is incorrect. I read the article cited and it is the other way around. Right wingers are the ones lobbying against these regulations. The article says that the Cocoa Coalition is against the reopening of the EUDR, which is legal speak for delaying it for revisions (which is what right-wingers want). The Cocoa Coalition wants these key regulations to be reinstated. This is expanded on further in a different article by the same website which also directly quotes the Cocoa Coalition's statement on the situation. Here is part of that quote:
"The Cocoa Coalition, which comprises companies and civil society and other organisations in the cocoa and chocolate sector, has consistently supported the introduction of the EUDR. We welcome the publication of the guidance and updated FAQ document by the European Commission on 2 October. We will study them closely, and look forward to further clarifications as soon as possible. We note the Commission’s proposal to delay implementation by twelve months, and call for this to be adopted as speedily as possible, without amendment, in order to give companies as much certainty as possible on the revised timetable. We strongly oppose reopening the substance of the EUDR for new negotiations, and urge policymakers to resist any such suggestion."
As for Tony's partnering with Barry Callebaut, this post gave me the impression that Tony's chocolate is intermixed with theirs but that isn't true. I looked into it and found out that Tony's cocoa beans are kept 100% separate from all other beans so that they are fully traceable. From their news article on why they partner with Barry Callebaut:
"Some critics believe we shouldn’t work with Barry Callebaut, one of the biggest cocoa processors in the world. But again, this decision is deliberate. Our mission is to make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate, not just our chocolate but all chocolate worldwide. The 3rd pillar of our roadmap is to inspire others to act, most importantly to inspire other big chocolate companies to adopt our 5 Sourcing Principles. In 2005, we deliberately chose to partner with Barry Callebaut to show that it is possible to be fully traceable while working with a large processor. This way we show that every chocolate company can work according to our 5 sourcing principles. From the start, Barry Callebaut has believed in our mission and collaborated with us to set up fully segregated processing for our 100% traceable beans so they are never mixed with other beans. Working with Barry Callebaut allows us to further scale up our production and enables us to grow Tony’s Open Chain by processing the 100% traceable cocoa beans from our mission allies, too.
The website linked above - Slave Free Chocolate - is a great resource but it's not an official certification. Tony's Chocoloney is still Fairtrade and B-corp, and they have found no cases of modern slavery in their chocolate production. They have found child labour, though, which they are very transparent about. Back in 2017 they developed a system of catching and remedying child labor and it seems to be working. In their 2025 report, they helped 813 children out of labor and are working on helping other identified cases. Saying they're "content to let children to continue farming their cocoa" is...idk. It doesn't add up. If there's any more information on that, I'd like to know.
Another thing I noticed is that @closet-keys said that Tony's does not ensure a living wage for cocoa workers, citing an 2020 report from Voice Network. This is an old report, however. In the most recent 2025 report, Voice Network ranked Tony's as NUMBER TWO in providing a living wage for its workers. And that income increased 58% last year and seems to be steadily increasing over time.
I haven't looked into all of the links on this post yet but so far there's just too many things that don't add up for me to not jump in and say something. Please anyone feel free to fact-check my sources & the others on this post as well.
