Supply chains in commodity industries are often characterized by social and environmental abuse. In the cocoa industry, for example, the average farmer cultivates between three and five hectares to earn less than two dollars a day. It is an environment rife with social and environmental abuse. In this article, the authors look at the experience of Tony’s Chocolonely, a Dutch chocolate brand founded in 2005, which set itself a mission to sell 100% slavery-free chocolate.
They show how Tony’s brought its supply chain partners together to create an altogether new paradigm in which all actors take responsibility for social impact. And it really works: Tony’s profitably sells around $130 million worth of slavery-free chocolate bars in Western Europe and the U.S.Supply chains for many commodity products — such as cocoa, cotton, and sugar — are highly fragmented. In the case of cocoa, for example, most of which comes from West Africa, the raw product is produced by more than two million farmers, who supply a complex network of middlemen. With an average farm size of three to five hectares and an estimated income of less than two dollars a day, nearly all of these farmers live below the poverty line. It is an environment rife with social and environmental abuse. Frans Pannekoek is a former COO at Tony’s Chocoloney, a sustainable confectionery company based in the Netherlands, and the current COO of Seepje, a sustainable cleaning products manufacturer, also based in the Netherland
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