Who doesn’t like chocolate? I, the chocolate lover, am always surprised when someone says they don’t like it. Until I talked with someone who does like the chocolate itself, but not the process around the making of chocolate and therefore she chose to ban chocolate out of her life. Regular supermarket chocolate is a quite cheap product in the Netherlands, which on the other hand means cocoa farmers work their ass of to get you the delicious bar in the cheapest way possible. And how to they do this? They use slaves. You may think this is an ancient concept, yet the opposite is true. That’s the reason why Tony’s Chocolonely was founded: to create a world with 100% slave-free chocolate.
To make sure their chocolate is 100% slave-free, Tony’s decided to create the Beantracker. This is an application that shows where the cocoa beans come from and where they go, the money flow and that processes all other relevant information. With the Beantracker, you can exactly see where and how the beans are retrieved, so you know where to go when you find modern slavery or child labour. The Beantracker is already a big step towards cruelty-free chocolate, however this was not enough for Tony’s. Tony’s partnered up with Accenture to experiment on developing a system like Beantracker, but then in blockchain. In that way, it would be possible to see exactly where the beans are at what time. With this blockchain tracker, the chocolate chain could be made fully transparent and the beans could be tracked in real-time. An end-to-end value chain which shows each and everyone’s responsibility for different parts of the chain.
As fruitful as this development may seem, the blockchain experiment was unfortunately not successful enough to be put to use by Tony’s Chocolonely. For example, not all transactions were traceable, and some developed features were redundant. Nonetheless, it is never wrong to start experimenting with new technologies in my opinion. What do you think Tony’s could have done instead of blockchain? Did they make the right choice in not continuing the development of a blockchain tracker?
https://tonyschocolonely.com/nl/nl/onze-missie/nieuws/blockchain-kunnen-wij-er-traceerbare-chocolade-van-maken
https://www.accenture-insights.nl/en-us/articles/improving-physical-supply-chains-with-blockchain
Nice article and a very relevant subject. The benifits of applying blockchain on the supply chain within the food industry are truly big. Contamination issues, increasing transparancy, tracking down fraud and more benefits come with the implementation as discussed. Other big players show willingness aswel to increase traceability; Unilever, Dole, Walmart and more. It’s a big thing.
Hi Moreen,
I think it is really interesting that Tony’s tries to use the newest technology this way. I think however, that the tracker was doomed to fail. Tracking data and transactions in the modern western world is quite easy, as almost all data and transactions are electronic. In Africa and other less wealthy production regions however, there are some issues with this. These poor farmers probably make less electronic transactions than western people and their governments often are more corrupt (resulting in “hidden transactions”). Despite these weaknesses, I think Tony’s wasn’t wrong to develop this app. They probably knew about these differences during development and knew that this app wasn’t going to remove modern slavery in their company in its entirety. Important to keep in mind is that Tony’s will probably keep developing the app, in other ways than with a blockchain tracker, that will help their cause more. The blockchain technology was a good idea worth trying, but these countries just weren’t ready for it yet.
Hi Oskar,
Thank you for your comment! I agree with you that the corrupt and analogous nature of countries in Africa may impose problems on the development of a tracker that is able to trace back 100% of contributing data. Indeed developing this tracker further, with or without blockchain, is a great step towards slave-free chocolate and perhaps other consumer goods such as clothing. What do you think is a way to not miss data in this chocolate chain?
Best regards,
Moreen
Dear Moreen,
Firstly, thank you for your post! I enjoyed reading your content and good you bring up this issue. This collaboration of Tony’s with Accenture is a clear example of the interplay between business & IS/IT and how it can be used in improving social responsibility practices.
Personally, I believe that Tony’s mission statement cannot be fulfilled without the use of IT. In order to make chocolate bars 100% slave-free, IT is absolutely necessary to bridge the (information) gap between the end consumers and cocoa farmers. So, Tony’s beantracker is a move in the right direction! Naturally, one would think that the blockchain is a great follow up of Tony’s current bean tracker system. However, I would like to argue for another strategic move: why not extend the beantracker to a system that tracks all ingredients that go into their chocolate bars? I mean high chances you tried, for example, the green hazelnut bar (did you?). Do you know where that hazelnut is coming from? Or the sugar that goes into any of their bars? A real 100% slave-free chocolate bar should have full (supply chain) transparency. Yes, achieving this is an extremely challenging task that is currently far from reached. As discussed in class, Tony would probably have to deal with the so called Pinguin problem, as being the first chocolate bar producers to making a real move towards corporate responsibility in the chocolate industry. On the other hand, they can also advantages of being a first mover in offering choclate bars that are guaranteed 100% slave-free.
Now, I assume that they have clear reasons for making the choice not to continue the development of using blockchain. My first guess would be that risks and costs associated with moving away from their current bean tracker system are too high. Their decision to not jump on the blockchain boat for now does not necessarily mean they never would.
For now, I hope more and more business will use IT for higher-purpose ends like Tony’s!
Hi Carli,
Thanks a lot for your reply!
Of course I tried the green hazelnut (in fact I tried all their flavors, caramel sea salt is my favorite!), and indeed we don’t know where the hazelnut as well as other ingredients come from. You’re right that it’s an important strategic move to also track the other ingredients besides the cocoa beans, however I think this is one bridge too far. Since it’s not even possible to completely track the cocoa beans, how will they be able to track all other ingredients? Absolutely, they make a great move towards CSR in the chocolate industry. In fact, they’re one of the few companies that offers cocoa farmers an additional fee for the cocoa beans, as the minimum fee offered by the government is way too low, according to Tony’s. In my opinion, Tony’s should keep working like this and keep trying innovative ideas to decrease the amount of slavery in the cocoa chain. And indeed, Tony’s is a great example for other businesses to use IT for higher-purpose ends!
Best regards,
Moreen
Dear Moreen,
Very interesting topic! I really enjoyed reading it and I had no idea Tony’s Chocolonely was experimenting with new technologies this way. In my opinion, more firms should follow this and use technology for higher level operations. However, from the beginning of your blog post, I already assumed that this experiment did not work out well. It must have been very hard (and for now, “impossible”) to track where the beans are exactly with its corresponding time. Every country has a different level of use of technology, meaning that it would be very hard for Tony’s Chocolonely to track the beans anywhere in the world: some countries may not even use technology on such advanced levels! However, I still think that it was a great initiative of the company, and I hope that they will do more experiments like this.
Kind regards,
Berna
Dear Berna,
Thank you for your comment! Indeed it would be great if more firms follow Tony’s in this development. Especially the large FMCG’s such as Unilever or Nestlé can prove a large difference if they accomodate this research. However, these firms are more focused on profit instead of ecological development and will therefore not follow Tony’s soon, I guess. It is still very hard to track the full supply chain, but keeping up with the development is a great way of making the world a better place!
Best regards,
Moreen
Interesting post. Even though it was not a big success, it is nice to see how companies in such a ‘traditional’ industry are trying to be innovative. You might want to read this article:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/blockchain/category/blockchain-in-food-safety/
Hi Wielande,
Thank you for your comment. Very interesting website! This proves once again how important it is firms keep developing their supply chain and the management of it.
Best regards,
Moreen