After discovering illegal child labour and modern slavery practices in West African cocoa farms, Dutch journalist Teun van de Keuken founded Tony’s Chocolonely in 2003. With its disproportionately distributed chocolate bars, social initiatives and extensive media attention, Tony’s has been a true socially responsible disruptor with its mission to make chocolate 100% slave-free. Could blockchain technology be the game-changer to ensure a socially responsible value chain from bean to bar?
How it could help Tony’s Chocolonely’s mission
Blockchain’s real power for businesses like Tony’s Chocolonely lies in its ability to provide transparency and traceability for every step in the product’s journey. Its immutable nature ensures prevents intermediaries from tampering with data, heritage or supply chain of the product. This tightens Tony’s control over the value chain.
Additionally, Tony’s Chocolonely could leverage the blockchain by providing the consumer real-time insight into the supply chain of the chocolate bar. This can easily be done by scanning a QR code on the packaging. With blockchain, ethical consumers can trust that Tony’s is not only saying that their chocolate is 100% slave-free, -but proving it. This could become part of Tony’s branding, further distinguishing itself as an honest, socially responsible company.
Lastly, blockchain can hold automatically executable smart contracts. It could streamline Tony’s Chocolonely’s payments by automatically paying intermediaries or farmers when verified shipments meet standards such as arriving on time or, more importantly, ethical criteria like fair working conditions on the originating cocoa farm.
Considerations
Although blockchain could significantly help Tony Chocolonely’s mission, implementing it from bean to bar could pose significant challenges. It would require serious IT investments, extensive training for local farmers and most importantly, all stakeholders must be on board. Should Tony’s Chocolonely invest in this technology? It might just be the next step in the journey towards slave-free chocolate.
