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What's pretty telling is that nowhere in their brand statements have they confirmed their chocolate is child-labor free. What's more: > We believe in empowerin

What's pretty telling is that nowhere in their brand statements have they confirmed their chocolate is child-labor free. What's more: > We believe in empowering cocoa farmers and people in cocoa communities with a certain level of consciousness about what is and isn't allowed. It’s fine for children to help out on the farm after school and learn about how cocoa is grown, but it’s important that farmers and communities know where to draw the line. They need to understand that certain types of work, such as heavy lifting, are harmful to children. Cooperatives have to do their part in taking responsibility to combat illegal child labor. By their own admission they are not trying to end child labor - just improve the practice. (Which I think is noble, I just don't think people appreciate how difficult eliminating child labor is)

giraffe_lady 3y ago
About 15 years ago when I was still in the food industry I remember a chocolatier telling me she didn't believe it was possible to be genuinely completely sure there was no child or slave labor in your chocolate. You could get the number low, possibly zero, you could with a lot of effort get a snapshot of your supply chain at a point where the number was plausibly zero, but you couldn't guarantee it was actually at zero over any length of time. It's entirely possible the situation has improved since then, I have no particular knowledge either way.
MrJohz 3y ago
I mean, we haven't eliminated child labour in most Western countries - there's still plenty of kids walking their neighbours dogs, babysitting, cleaning cars, delivering newspapers etc. I don't think "prevent all children from ever doing any work" is the standard expectation here. And while it's not necessarily about child labour, they're very explicit that they won't call their chocolate slave-free, and I imagine similar logic applies to child labour: https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-were-100-slave-free https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-wer... EDIT: to be clear, exploitative child labour, and child labour at the expense of health, education, or resources are completely immoral. Children should work because they choose to and because they get something out of it, not because the industry needs all the hands it can get at in order to function. However, I dislike this idea of "but it's not perfect, so should we really support it?" The work that companies like Tony's do is incredibly important, and - slightly less importantly - they produce some of the best chocolate on the market (and also not at outrageous prices). So this clearly isn't a pipe dream of theirs that will never succeed.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

About 15 years ago when I was still in the food industry I remember a chocolatier telling me she didn't believe it was possible to be genuinely completely sure there was no child or slave labor in your chocolate. You could get the number low, possibly zero, you could with a lot of effort get a snapshot of your supply chain at a point where the number was plausibly zero, but you couldn't guarantee it was actually at zero over any length of time. It's entirely possible the situation has improved since then, I have no particular knowledge either way.

MrJohz 3y ago

I mean, we haven't eliminated child labour in most Western countries - there's still plenty of kids walking their neighbours dogs, babysitting, cleaning cars, delivering newspapers etc. I don't think "prevent all children from ever doing any work" is the standard expectation here. And while it's not necessarily about child labour, they're very explicit that they won't call their chocolate slave-free, and I imagine similar logic applies to child labour: https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-were-100-slave-free https://tonyschocolonely.com/uk/en/why-we-still-wont-say-wer... EDIT: to be clear, exploitative child labour, and child labour at the expense of health, education, or resources are completely immoral. Children should work because they choose to and because they get something out of it, not because the industry needs all the hands it can get at in order to function. However, I dislike this idea of "but it's not perfect, so should we really support it?" The work that companies like Tony's do is incredibly important, and - slightly less importantly - they produce some of the best chocolate on the market (and also not at outrageous prices). So this clearly isn't a pipe dream of theirs that will never succeed.