Frequently asked questions

When Tony’s was founded, Max Havelaar (aka Fairtrade Netherlands) was the only organization seeking to promote fair trade and better living conditions for cocoa farmers. To qualify for Fairtrade certification, production conditions must meet certain minimum social and environmental standards. Also, as a certification system, Fairtrade is most closely aligned with our commitment, because it guarantees a minimum price and works with cooperatives. Having said this, as far as we’re concerned, certification is simply a starting point: the first step on the way to a fair supply chain. We believe it’s possible to do more. That’s why we developed Tony’s Sourcing Principles: tried-and-true set of commitments designed to fight the root causes of exploitation in cocoa.

It doesn’t make sense for chocolate bars to be divided into equal-sized chunks when our bars are unequally divided, just like the chocolate industry.

While the chocolate industry is making big profits, millions of cocoa farmers in Ghana + Côte d’Ivoire have been grossly underpaid – for decades. The result? Widespread deforestation.. and 1.56 million children* trapped in child labor.

We’re here to change that, together with you.

*NORC Report, 2020

And in case you haven’t noticed, the bottom of our bars depicts the West African coastline. The chunks just above it represent the Gulf of Guinea. From left to right, you have Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin (terribly politically incorrect, we know, but we had to combine them to create enough space for a hazelnut), Nigeria and part of Cameroon.

The unequally-sized chunks of our 180g bars are a palatable way of reminding Choco Fans and Serious Friends that the profits in the chocolate industry are unequally divided.

There are all kinds of labels on chocolate packaging. This is because several certification systems operate under different names. Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance (previously Rainforest Alliance and UTZ before they merged in 2018) are independent certificates that follow ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards.

Certifications are third-party checks on an external set of standards, a kind of compliance check on sustainability for companies. They all serve different purposes. As far as we’re concerned, certification is a starting point.

To fight exploitation in cocoa we believe that companies have to go beyond certification and take full responsibility for their supply chains. That’s why we developed Tony’s Sourcing Principles - our tried-and-true set of commitments designed to fight the root causes of exploitation in cocoa. And set up Tony's Open Chain enabling other companies to take responsibility for their cocoa supply chain via these principles.

Good question. Read our story here.

Read our story here.

At the moment, we don’t have any plans to produce a sugar-free Tony’s bar or to produce one with a sugar substitute. We exist to end exploitation in the cocoa industry – fighting poverty, child labor and deforestation. To achieve this, we have to make chunking good chocolate sourced using Tony’s Sourcing Principles, so we can help cocoa farmers create a better future for themselves and inspire other chocolate makers to follow our example. In other words, we want to change the mainstream chocolate industry. Sugar-free bars are still too much of a niche product. Producing one won’t help the cocoa farmers. But this may not always be the case. We do our best to always raise the bar.

All of our choco is suitable for vegetarians.

The simple reason is because all of our chocolate is made on the same production lines.

We’ve got super strict cleaning rules in place at our factory, and that partly involves running a ‘transition batch’ after each batch of chocolate has been made. By doing this, we clean and remove any remaining chocolate (and allergens) from the line before we start making the next batch. However, chocolate is difficult to clean, and even with these rules in place we still can’t guarantee that any of our bars are fully allergen-free. That’s why we use ‘may contain’ allergen labeling on the back of our wrappers.