When you’ve got a ‘good for the world’ benefit to communicate, it’s easy to come across as serious and worthy. This Dutch chocolate bar maker has mixed Worthy with Wonka, and it’s a recipe for success: it has grown to almost €50m in annual revenue.
In 2001 Dutch journalist Teun (Tony) van de Keuken launched an investigation about the use of slavery within the cocoa industry on his consumer report show Keuringsdienst van Waarde.
He found that child slavery was rife in the cocoa plantations of west Africa, and decided to do something about it. Having attempted to draw attention to the issue by getting himself arrested as a chocolate ‘criminal’ (= consumer), Tony decided to lead by example and start his own 100% slavery-free chocolate company.
And that’s when the fun started (have a look at this great article from The Challenger Project for more details). There’s the brand name; the bright, bold packaging; and the genius idea of ‘unequally divided’ chunks which brings to life inequality in the world. “Our chocolate bar tells our story.
We’re fair and not so square” says Head of Marketing Pascal van Ham.
It feels like Tony’s taken a page out of the Ben & Jerry’s manual and then added his own chapter: some lessons here for the packaged goods majors.
Read more: Tony’s Chocolonely US website
