Fair Trade certified cocoa - ethically and sustainably sourced

• Traceable cocoa from farms being monitored for child/slave labor
• Not organic; some of their beans are from certified organic cooperatives, but many farmers are not trained enough to make a better income from organic farming.

Recycled packaging

• Forest Stewardship Council-certified Recycled and EU Ecolabel certified paper

• Uncoated: free from porcelain and kaolin
• Recycled: mix of recycled and FSC-certified paper originating from sustainably managed forests

• Foil contains “as much recycled material as possible” and is very thin, made of monoplastics (only one material)

Working for 100% slave-free cocoa

• The Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) has been implemented at all partner cooperatives in Ghana and the Ivory Coast; this system monitors the children of the farmers that supply Tony’s cocoa and gathers social data for when, where, and why child labor is being used to develop permanent solutions.
• Tony’s has a Beantracker which updates them on the cocoa stock in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where they source their beans, up to the detail of which farmer supplied what percentage of beans to each shipping container on its way to Belgium.
• All farmers must be united in a cooperative, which receives a fixed Fair Trade premium, and Tony’s has its own premium on top of that to ensure fair wages, labor standards, and training for workers.

Sustainable

• Tony’s works with farmers, training them to minimize pesticide use and learn new environmentally friendly production methods.
• Deforestation is strictly prohibited.
• Fair Trade requirements for farmers in relation to the environment:

• Water is used efficiently
• Production methods protect waterways and ecosystems
• Farmers use Integrated Pest Management and other best practices to protect soils and reduce the use of pesticides
• Pesticides and chemicals are used safely (and farmers do not use certain pesticides prohibited by Fair Trade)
• Waste disposal does not threaten human health or the environment.

Tony’s Chocolonely was founded in 2005 by an investigative reporter who had discovered that major chocolate manufacturers were not upholding their pledge to use ethically sourced chocolate. He founded Tony’s to create a chocolate bar that used 100% slave-free cocoa. Teun van de Keuken, the founder, named the brand as such because he felt that he was the only person in the chocolate industry interested in seriously eradicating slave labor (Chocolonely).

They have 5 major rules for their ethical cocoa:

• Traceable beans using Tony’s Beantracker
• A higher premium paid to farmers to help close the poverty gap
• Ensure strength of farmers by training them to work professionally in a cooperative
• Ensure 5-year contracts with their farmers to allow the farmers the opportunity to make long-term investments
• Improve productivity on farms to make the same work more efficient and reduce farmers’ dependency on the cocoa trade

Their main focus is slave-free cocoa, but they prioritize the environment by training their farmers to reduce pesticide use, they offset 100% of their emissions through Justdiggit, and they are '“taking steps” to reduce their future emissions.

Accountability

• They paid external researchers to research forced labor in their value chain; their website claims that the researchers found no recent cases of modern slavery, as well as 4 adult cases of slavery in the past and some “unclear informal labour agreements” with farmers. They claim to be working on these cases with their cooperatives.
• They asked True Price, a social enterprise which calculates the ‘true price’ of products including externalities such as CO2 emissions and slavery; True Price found that the cost of living in Ghana was higher than Tony’s accounted for, so Tony’s adjusted for the next season. True Price concluded that the negative impact of Tony’s was 55% lower than the average.
• They release an annual FAIR report on their website showing “impact results” from the previous fiscal year and their goals for the future.

• “Besides telling you what we achieved, we’ll tell you where we didn’t succeed”