Tony's Chocolonely bars are shaped unevenly to represent farmer inequality and the coastline of Africa
Tony's Chocolonely bars are shaped unevenly to represent farmer inequality and the coastline of Africa
"It doesn’t make sense for chocolate bars to be divided into equal-sized chunks when there is so much inequality in the chocolate industry! The unequally-sized chunks of our 6.35 oz bars are a palatable way of reminding Choco Fans and Serious Friends that the profits in the chocolate industry are unequally divided.
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."
I love it, but I feel obligated to say
"It doesn’t make sense for chocolate bars to be divided into equal-sized chunks when there is so much inequality in the chocolate industry!
No, it makes sense. I understand, but it makes a lot more sense
Ok but this is a good way to raise awareness about the issue. Many people will pick these bars in the store without knowing much about the brand. Then when they eat it, they will probably wonder why it's divided like that and the explanation is right there on the inside of the wrapper.
Yeah this copy needed a couple more drafts/notes.
I do like these bars but breaking it into pieces without a mess is difficult. I've had to resort to putting the entire thing in my mouth and waiting for it to melt down my throat.
You break it while the packaging is intact
The geopolitical meta is strong here
Giggity
Especially the dark ones require a lot of force to break. I see it as a challenge.
The sarlaac method
It is a mess, which is why I thought it’s intentional to make it difficult to apportion your dose of chocolate, in effect making you eat more. And all this stuff about inequality sounds like the worst BS possible.
Too bad about all the lead in them. They're not as bad as some brands, though.
An ounce of their Dark Chocolate has 134% of the California MADL dose of 0.5 micrograms of lead, for those wondering about details.
micrograms, which is 1/1000 of a milligram. No amount of lead is considered safe, but you would need to eat allllottttttt of this chocolate before it would get to a level that, for example, a doctor would be concerned about. Ars Technica has a good write up about the CR report
Not that I’m trying to shill for Big Chocolate. When I saw the report, I definitely made a conscious effort to cut back to once a month or less.
Well shit
I know, right? It really sucks. They're honestly one of the tastier bars I'd had. I've taken a bit of a step back from chocolate in general, these days. I probably got enough lead exposure as a kid... no need to add any more than is absolutely unavoidable.
Otoh, it makes them sweeter
If it's good enough to collapse the Roman Empire, it's good enough to collapse the American Empire!
Lol, that's per ounce too.
The lead and cadmium are in there on purpose, to enhance taste. Have you ever had chocolate without lead and cadmium? It tastes nasty
I'm not sure if OP was intended as an ad or not, but I think we should have an informal rule that if a top post is about a product, we should all upvote the comment that has the worst fact about that product. It's the only way to be sure.
It's a good thing I don't like dark chocolate then
Wow I had no idea, thanks for sharing the source.
Maybe they should spend less money on a fancy mold for their chocolate and more on better sourced cocoa beans with less lead in them: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-cadmium-in-dark-chocolate-a8480295550/
There is absolutely no difference in price between the two - i.e. a "fancy" one like this and a regular one. Both will most likely be made by machining a block of graphite and using EDM to make the actual mold. The difference in machining time wouldn't cost more than $200 or so
Sure, gram for gram, Tony's has 34% more lead than California would like, but their chocolate is still sold in the state.
To add to what @[email protected] pointed out, the Mast bar is 70g for $8, while Tony's bar is 180g for $6.
Gram for gram, Mast is more than triple the price.
Quite succesful in the Netherlands.
In 2003, after discovering that the majority of chocolate produced at the time had links to human exploitation, Dutch television producer and journalist Teun van de Keuken began producing programs about the horrors of the commercial cocoa industry on his show Keuringsdienst van Waarde. Furthermore, he submitted a request to be prosecuted for knowingly purchasing an illegally manufactured product, which prosecutors declined to do.
After three years of unsuccessful attempts to change the industry through investigative efforts, Van de Keuken decided to start producing chocolate bars himself. The brand was called "Tony's Chocolonely" with "Tony" (= Teun) and "Chocolonely" in reference to Teun van de Keuken feeling as if he was the only person in the industry who was interested in eradicating slavery. Van de Keuken sold 20,000 bars in two days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony's_Chocolonely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teun_van_de_Keuken
It's making its way into Belgium too!
Oh yeah they have been here in DelHaize and Albert Hein (both owned by the dutch company) for a while and are now popping up in Colruyt and spar I think.
Thanks for the advertisement?
Some info, that's interesting and helps balance this blatant advertisement. Tony's was started by Dutch television maker Teun van der Keuken. He worked on a program that exposes products for their production methods and false marketing and so on. They stumbled onto the slavery that's part of the cacao industry. He asked to be arrested for eating chocolate, and in doing so enabling slave labor, but he wasn't. He started out Tony's Chocolonely to attempt to change the chocolate industry. He's not part of the company anymore. He has concluded the mission has failed, and is very critical of his former company, saying they've lost sight of the aim: slave-free chocolate.
Wait, failed how? I didn’t know about this part.
This article is from 2015. By then it's been 10 years since the company started, and he already left it. In the article he explains that still only 25% of the cacao used in Tony's Chocolonely is guaranteed slave-free, let alone that they've had any significant impact on the industry at large. He says the situation of slave labor in cacao industry has only worsened. Tony's has changed the message on their product "100% slave free" (which was false advertising) to something like "working together towards slave-free chocolate", which he concludes to be meaningless marketing. It's rather bizarre that such a message is allowed on a product that contains cacao from slave-labor....
Around $5 and good chocolate
Bought some for 2.5 Euros 2 werkstatt ago.
If they paid the farmers more they could just make regular shaped chocolate
They literally do, and their chocolate is a little more expensive because of it
But they're not Hershey or Cadbury (whoever owns them, forget the name rn), or even close to them in size, so they can't just fix the industry all on their own
Literally
I think that is exactly why this company was founded.
The "lonely" part of the name comes from how they're the only player in the industry trying to do what they do.
Fait point, but it's a statement about the industry as a whole, not their own production. Even if they were to distribute profits evenly over the entire production chain of their products (which I agree they probably don't), the industry as a whole would still have this problem.
And miss out on this marketing opportunity? Lol don't be ridiculous.
They cut out the white chocolate south and milk chocolate north.
Damn that's just an ad. There is no escape
This is my favorite brand of chocolate rn
First not sure why everyone is so sure this is an ad and not just OP likes this and the message.
I’ve contemplated posting about this chocolate, I guess we can’t call out companies we like and we just all shit on everything all the time.
Second, my friend called me out for paying £3.50 for a bar of this whenever we have a chocolate and film night when Cadbury is like £1.50. When I said it’s more ethically sourced he said I don’t care about that. 😞
The irregular pieces make it much easier to eat. You make a conscious decision how much you break off, instead of just getting another 4 squares.
Yes... haha.... conscious eating... haha...
Neato advertisement!
Products looks like shit.
It's also why I no longer buy it. It's a PITA to eat.
Am I the only one that thinks its ridiculous to eat an ounce of chocolate a day?
The billionaire chocolate bar would leave only the wrapping paper to the consumer.
I want to like this chocolate, but it's just so bland.
I think it’s delicious.
Are you American as I find your chocolate far too sweet so perhaps you just like sugar and not chocolate.
I realise that might sound offensive but I don’t mean it that way, just curious.
I see Saddam Hussein in the bottom left there. The meme know no bounds!
Absolutely disgusting chocolate in my opinion. Chalky and bland. It’s nice that they claim to be about equality, but the product itself just isn’t to my taste. And yes, the dumb way they make these bars also really puts me off.
I just want a normal, boring bar that tastes nice. And this is not the brand for me.
Yeah same, I like their ethics, don't like the product very much.
That was my experience with it as well. I'm surprised to see it around still honestly. Worst chocolate I've ever had from feel/texture to taste.
Unless something has changed that company is no longer on the slavery free list due to them having Callebaut making their chocolate.
Guittard is my favorite for snacking and using in baking.
They also don't fuck over cocoa growers
Did Europe colonize that chocolate bar
whoa, meta
It doesn't make any sense to do this as a metaphor. Chocolate is typically divided into evenly sized chunks for measurement purposes, regardless of the evil practices of the chocolate industry.
The metaphor is asinine the explanation is confusing and it's lost on almost everybody who buys this.
I have had this brand of chocolate before and it is quite good however.
I don't know, man. Sounds like the guy at least TRIED to do something more than most people. Granted, it doesn't compare to a life spent delivering clever piss-take commentary to Lemmy, but not everyone can be so blessed.
Also, speaking of asinine, measurement purposes? If they were selling unsweetened cocao bars for baking, you would have had a point.
I'd say most people get frustrated and think WTF did they make this chocolate bar a pain in my ass? Then maybe they notice the story on the inside of the wrapper and read it?
I have never been in or adjacent to a situation where I had to measure chocolate packaged and sold to be eaten as-is in a recipe by squares broken off of a bar, at the demarcations pre-scored into the bar. If I needed that much control I'd grate it or use a chocolate that came pre-granulated, like baking kisses.
For chocolate bars meant to be eaten, the score lines are very much for sharability first. Any use of them for culinary measurement is at best a peripheral feature.
This probably doesn't hold true for baking chocolate. But Tony's isn't baking chocolate.
No, I did not notice part of my chocolate bar looks vaguely like part of the coast of part of a continent I’ve never been too. I’m sorry. I’m clearly the asshole here
Good choc though
You don't have to visit a continent to learn about it in geography
HAIL CORPORATE
They are also 6€ so, not for me.
The problem is that other chocolates are too cheap and literally use slave labor.
Treat yourself one time. The quality of the chocolate is so much better than the garbage shoveled out by Hersheys.
My spouse and I discovered their chocolate by chance. It's now our go-to because of their business practices and their quality.
It probably taste like shit american chocolate too. I tried Aldi's chocolates and can't go back.
It isn't American, and it doesn't taste like shit.
The founder, Teun van der Keuken, is a Dutch guy. He started this journey with sueing himself before a Dutch judge, on account of participating in slave labour (by buying chocolate in a supermarket, knowing that it's likely produced by slave labour)
Same. I am obsessed with their peanut butter cups and the peanut and cornflake bars.
I swear to god I need a rolling my eyes emoji for the shit I see on Lemmy sometimes.
Today's post is...
*Shuffles cards.
Inequality... Chocolate... so you can feel depressed about the world while you are eating chocolate.(no offense to OP, maybe I'm just an old man who doesn't get it)
Hey. I understand that maybe you're unaware of the nuance behind this. Almost all massive producers of chocolate rely of human exploitation and slavery to get their chocolate. Many "workers" are also young children. People need to know this.
I know that it seems like people might just be out to "spoil the fun", but the more you know about a product and how it is produced, you can make decisions about your consumption.
I've made decisions like purchasing the majority of my clothing secondhand, avoiding N×stlè products, cutting much of my meat consumption, etc. because I'm faced with the reality that my choices affect the lives around me, even if I do not see the impact directly.
It's upsetting to hear about the reality of things like this, but it's very very important to be informed. I do not want to simply consume a product if I know that it is actively harming lives and/or contributing to human suffering. If that means avoiding certain chocolate bars, so be it. I hope that someone would do the same for me, too, if I were in such a position.
The thing is you live in what is called the imperial core if you are a western nation citizen and especially if you are an American citizen. You get what you want for dirt cheap prices(even if you think it is expensive). Turns out many things you own or get is at the expense of other people who still live in dirt houses or just don't know where their next meal will come from or just in general an exploited people who isn't getting a sustainable compensation for their work. You get chocolate, an electric car, or diamonds at dirt cheap prices from the labor of people who don't even know what chocolate tastes like. You get chocolate because you enjoy chocolate. Chocolate is cheap because you demand it to be so you can have a little treat. You winge at learning about something while eating chocolate. We are sitting comfortable eating chocolate while you cry about learning about inequalities. You are asked to think about inequality about your little treat. It isn't about chocolate at all. Just take some time to consider your little treat is making someone millions while the person's hands who made it is hungry and will die at 40 because of the conditions they live in.
No we don't expect you to completely stop eating chocolate. No we don't expect you to change the world. We ask you to just think about other people for a moment while you take a break. I know it is hard since most people are being exploited in a different way here in the west and we have our own lives but at least we have so much food here that we won't go hungry with programs to help funded by how rich we are. While people who made our little treat dedicate some farm land for our tasty morsel when they are hungry themselves. Never to even know that there hands create a delicious thing we can buy for less than 20 minutes of our labor in America