The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.

Hello, I'm Kimberly King, and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, we discuss the chocolate industry and how one company is making a difference by making their chocolate without the use of illegal slave labor, it's all about Fair Trade Practices, plus later... We'll tell you what's going on around town. But first up, Peter Sandy is originally from the Netherlands and started working with Tony's chuck a lonely four years ago to help launch Tony's chocolate in the United States. Prior to working for Tony's, Peter worked at several food and wine companies in the US and the Netherlands. Peter currently lives in Portland with his wife and two kids, and he loves the Pacific Northwest and is happy to be in the Southern California area to catch them sunset. And we welcome him to the mother's market radio show.

How are you?

Yeah, I'm good, thank you so much. Thanks for having me can, thanks for being here.

Why don't you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today's show topic?

Yes, so Tony Chacon was started in the Nealon about 13 years ago by actually a device and an investigative journalist, and so this division, it's kind of like the food police on TV, so they will research issues in the food industry and they may look into, for example, like why chicken breasts are so large these days, 'cause of the growth hormones that are being put in there, and about 15 years ago, so I think 2003-2004, they started hearing these stories about child slavery in West Africa on the cocoa farms, and they dug a little deeper start, do some research and found out that large chuckle companies had a signed a senatorial in 01 saying they would eradicate child slavery by 2005, but not much was being done, so yeah, one thing, that's one and they started like tones to create awareness around these issues, and really show that things can be done differently.

How interesting. This is great. So today, obviously, we're talking about the chocolate industry and more specifically using illegal slaves to make chocolate, and obviously that's not the way you guys do this, so Peter, I understand that your company works to create a slave-free industry, and can you tell me a little bit more about the slavery issues that are go on in the cocoa industry.

Yes, this has been happening for a very, very long time. It's all directly related to the poverty in the region, and Blythe way the industry is organized is that there are a couple of million farmers, and we mostly focus on West Africa, the situation is probably somewhat better in South America, so Coco grows in like this band around the Equator, millions around the world, with about 60% of the cocoa in the world has grown in two countries, really in West Africa, Ghana and Ivory Coast, and so there's a couple of million farmers there, and of course, we know there are like millions, maybe billions of consumers of, of chocolates, but in the middle are really only a couple of really large chocolate companies, and the power in the industry is very concentrated by the are in these companies, and so it's in the best interest to yet to keep the pricing elated low. So yeah, that's a great poet, and basically the only way many of these farmers can make it is by referring to illegal child labor, how many people are employed under illegal circumstances... I know you mentioned a couple million... Both. Many, yeah, so there's a couple of million farmers like in West Africa, and so the lane University comes out, but to report every couple of years, and the most recent report stated that there was about two million children that work under legal circumstances on the cocoa farms and circumstances, that is like a wide range of things that that allows according to both the UN as well as local legislation, but this could range from children doing dangerous work, children doing not allow... To go to school because they have to work on the farms. But it also includes children that are truly being trafficked and BOD and salt in order to work on the farms under really bad circumstances.

How young are these children are we talking about... So it ranges from children as young as maybe like 10 to 18.Wow. Where are these problems? You know, you mentioned Gana and the Ivory Coast. Can you expand a little bit more?

Yeah, it's basically, it's across Ghana and the vice, and some of these kids come from other surrounding countries, so they are basically people go into their villages, it's a very poor region, so people will go into the villages, promise families that kids will find good work, make good money, have a good life, and then these kids are basically transported to Cana and Ivory Coast and end up working on the farms and don't get paid anything. And so we work obviously to try to combat those issues, but we've also been working trying to help those kids that have been able to escape, rebuild their lives.

That's so sad.

And again, it does come down to the poverty issue, and then you see that traffic, the trafficking issue, and it's just a... What was very difficult in the beginning when the TV show started investigating this was how this all came to be and how the whole industry industry works, so when they started digging and they found out that in the US, the Santa particle was assigned no traceability in the supply chain, so nobody, when you eat a chocolate bar, unless it's like a direct being to bare, nobody really knows where exactly those cocoa beans are from. So it's a great way, at a sad way, but it basically means that large companies are able to not take responsibility for what's truly happening on the farms, and they acknowledge that are issues anyways, Africa, and there certainly are some programs that they are trying to support to combat these issues, but in our opinion, you can only really work towards a solution if you take responsibility for where your product comes from, a your ingredients come from, so that we say that a traceability is like a key component in really fighting child slavery on these farms in West Africa, right? you're shining a light on where the issues are, and I remember a while ago, years ago when they shine the light on the child's liver issue and making, making clothing, and you saw the child laborers happened there, and I just remember how awful that was, but I just didn't realize that this was happening in chocolate... Yeah, and I think the moment that happened, and it was linked directly to to certain companies, like those companies like sprang into action because there was a cause you... My backlash, right? And that doesn't exactly happen the same way in a chocolate industry because nobody is stair ECT to the terrible circumstances on the farms.

Right, well, and good for you for taking action and doing something about this, so your company was started in 2005, do these problems still exist and I mean, your company is doing something about this... Yeah, sadly enough. They do, and so to Lanier Siti started doing research shortly after 2001, and so of these research was initiated by the center protocol that was signed, and so the most recent research that they did shows that the problem is actually only getting worse, and I... And I went to Ghana myself a couple of years ago, like most fitting our farm, so I did it at LCC naboo, like you see the circumstances of how these people live, and you understand that it happens and unless the price of the Coco, the farmer expand goes up, this is not going to change. And the price of the core on the world market has been going, going up and down quite a bit over the years, but at the end of the day, the farmer doesn't receive anything more than they receive maybe 20 years ago, so... What about Fair Trade and consumers just buy fair trade chocolate and can we feel comfortable about the illegal ferrite?

Yeah, that's a good question, and we can see the Fat Ray to be a great first step in solving some of these issues, but as far as we unconcerned, because it be yourself like a critical member of the Fair Trade community, and we work very closely with the fair trade organization in the Netherlands, trying to make the regulations... I'm not sure what the right word is, more strange and make sure that there's more follow-through mitosis sections on the farms, because what happens is that the fat inspect, it can't be there all the time. And often, yeah, they arrive on the farm, but they let them know a couple of days ahead of time that they're gonna be coming 'cause they're gonna have to go over a whole other things in order to make sure that the farm can keep you part certification. But obviously, if they know ahead of time that somebody is coming, then yeah, that you won't find any children... Right.

Forest behavior, right?

So the other issue with Fair Trade is that when you buy a fan rate product, but I can only really talk for about cocoa chocolate bar, that is not necessarily always fair, the beans, if it's a direct bean to bar, it's Fair Trade, or it's like... You know what I mean? Beans come from, but it's kind of like wind energy, where you buy a wind energy from your energy company, but there's no direct link between the turbine and your home, so we really think that fairtrade is a great first step in ensuring that circumstances are improving and it ate before, we feel that the companies should really take full responsibility for while understanding where that product comes from and then taking responsibility for what happens on the farm and a fair trade is a great program, but you really have to make sure that you're down there yourself and make sure that the circumstances are, are correct and be engaged, and as you said, make those visits and show up without letting them know ahead of time that we really... We really appreciate that rate for what they are doing, and they really are making sure that circumstances are improving, the farmers do get paid paid more than unlike the regular system, but there's still a lot of improvement to be made in order to really eradicate illegal child labor in a Africa... And that kind of goes with my next question, how much money would it take for these farms to eliminate slave labor?

So that's a good question, I can exactly answer that, but the living income analysis every year in Ghana, Iveco, and we base our premiums what we consider to be a living income for the farmers, so we also look into how productivity can be improved, so we do take some of that into account as well, we really are trying to push the farmers to become more productive and also produce a better product, but yeah, premiums are significantly higher than they are unlike what the farmers could sell their product for on the world market is about 25% over the world market price, but that still only gets them really to what we consider to be just above the poverty level, that is not necessarily like a great lifestyle for them either... This is really sad. But let's say we're gonna take a quick break right now. It's a great, interesting information about, let's take a quick break more in just a moment, don't go away and we will have more with Peter and we'll be right back.

Okay.

And welcome back to the mother's market radio show. And we wanna remind you that if you've missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com, click the link for radio and listen to the past shows. Plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com, and now we're back to our interview with Peter and from Tony's Chacon, and we're talking about slave free chocolate and a peer... Your top, tell me a little bit about how the company got started and a TV journalist, and I'm really interested in hearing about your story and how you're doing things differently, and also the name Choco lonely. Can you tell me a little bit about... Yeah, it's a very intricate... Only scratch the service when we talked about this earlier, but... So I mentioned that I was started by a Visio and an investigative journalist, and itis is like, yeah, the food police entropy. It's actually... It's a really funny show and it still is running in the Netherlands, so after they had done some initial episodes on these issues in most Africa and actually had gone to West Africa to sort of dig deeper and understand better how this all could actually be happening, they try to like the large coleco entropy and talk about this, but they didn't really wanna shine any more lights, 'cause of course they were afraid of this would implicate them too much, and so they were thinking through there are options and maybe even considering legal action, so they talked to some Dutch legal experts, but very clearly, very quickly, it became clear that they could never really like... So any of these large chuckle companies, 'cause they would just put an army of lawyers on it and bankrupt them, so they came up with this one innovative idea where they were gonna have the journalist eats some chocolate bars and basically asked justice system to prosecute him because in Holland, when you buy a tone and bicycle that No may need was stolen, you can be held accountable for that crime, so following that same logic, they had him in these chocolate bars and he called the police and said like, Hey listen, I ate some chocolate bars, I know it as illegal child, never involved in a production of Arco. That's not allowed under the dahlia Fossett. Me, and so he was... So the Dutch justice system went ahead and persecuted him, and so he was not convicted, and in the mean time, the Charlie and the cataract movie was re-released and so they thought, Okay, it would be a great idea for a NESTA to maybe come out with a slavery, free chocolate bar.

So, yeah. They talked about that, but they didn't wanna do it, and then they decided, Okay. Well, we just gonna have to do this ourselves.

So they went out, they found a chocolate manufacturer and they asked him to make 5000 chocolate bars just to show that they could do this differently, this was never really meant to be a company, they just wanted to make a couple of chocolate bars and sell these during release of the movie to create awareness around these issues, so the morning, the Tractate on sale, like they were being sorties little kiosk on train stations, the lines were out of the hole at the end, people were just buying cases of these chocolate bars at the same time, so in just a matter of hours, they were sold out, and then they called the chocolate manufacturer again, where they had bogies chocolate bars, I said like, Hey, we may need a few more, and that's really what started the company, do you... Shackleton is the TV journalist.

Yeah, his name really a turn, but that's an impossible name, and when he was calling to the US trying to get a hold of these US senators, but they also talked to Ben and Jerry's about doing something, he always had to spell out his name, and at some point, he was, okay, just call me Tony.

That was way easier as they started this company that way, and then from the very beginning, the mission of the company has not been about making chocolates, the mission is to create a 100% safely chocolate industry, so we don't invite that, we don't only mean our own chakras, but all chocolate worldwide. So for us, it's about creating awareness, it's about figuring out a model that can work for everybody else, it really works towards like eradicating child slavery because we cannot simply do this by ourselves, and then thirdly, we need to inspire other companies to basically do what we do, and there's certainly are outer great companies out there, many of the companies that do direct bean to bar production of that chakra, they know what happens on the farm, but there's a lot of companies out there that... Yeah, that simply don't know. And we really have to change the industry to have an impact in West Africa, that's really a great story, and I love it. It's not backward, it's actually very forward and to make it not about chocolate, but to change and trying to light on that, so good for you and good friend.

For Tony's chuckle. So what is your company down to create a slavery-free supply chain? Yeah, that's a good question, and that's really what it has always been all about, so we sell chocolates to create awareness and that obviously directly impacts the farmers that we work with, so the more chocolate we sell, the more Coco we can buy, and that's good. But yeah, I just explained like, that doesn't only is really a drop in the bucket.

So we've been working on figuring out a model and 60% of the cocaine world is bought from West Africa, that's where the issues are, so we decided that, Okay, well, we have to work in West Africa to really understand how we can improve things there and what needs to change. And so over the years, we've come up with a supply chain model where we basically are working off about five principles, and I think the first one is traceable beans, like creating... Transact in the system. And for us, that men not just simply doing that by buying our beings directly from West Africa and processing that into our own chocolates, but really work with those large Cockle companies that we spoke about earlier that are sitting in the middle and create traceability in their system. Because once we do that with them, we can convince other companies that work in a similar fashion to do what we do, and by creating traceability, we now know who the farmers are, so that means that we can pay the farmers a higher price. So we also touched upon this a little bit earlier, but we pay about a 25% premium on top of the world market price, and we try to calculate every year what sort of like the living income is based upon the world market price and then try to adjust our premiums in a manner that makes sure that the farmer can make an income that just puts him above the poverty level, so then we work with... So the third principle that we work with, like pharma organizations that we start long-term contracts, and that really helps the farmers in their communities to plan Hatton, we will be buying from them from several... For several years, so they can start to invest money in maybe seedlings or other things that can really help them grow more beans and also grow better beans, so that leads into the next steps, so we have long-term contracts that helps to create a better quality and productivity, which is the fourth principle, and then we really helped these farmers to develop strong farmer organizations like it also is very much in line in what fairtrade, for example, does, where we are really trying to build de-cooperate these cooperatives. So they have more power in the cocoa industry and they can stand up and fend for themselves, that's wonderful that you've gone in there and you've really developed these business practices with them... Yes, and they seem to be appreciative of what we're doing, but we're really looking at this as a business relationship, so we don't go in there and think of this as charity, we do a foundation, right.

Where we sometimes help out these communities, if we say that, Okay, well, the children needs to go to school, and the reason school, we may help them build a school, but at the end of the day, it's really a business relationship, and I think they appreciate that as well, like they're not looking for a hand out, they are just looking for a fair shake... Right, and it is not necessarily a handout, but you're giving them the tools and the practicality, you're giving them some... Right, it's about a far rise for that product and yeah, basically getting a fair deal, so what is the extra cost to the large companies to produce this chocolate?

So when you look at the cost of the beans in a chocolate bar, it's really not that much, so I don't know exactly, we have an annual report here, like it's somewhere in there, but it's maybe 15 to 20 cents of a cholera is really the cost of ingredients of Coco.

So paying a little X trapping, I don't know, 20% more or 25% more. Isn't really breaking the bank?

I think what's interesting about Tony is that we show that we can make create chocolate, like create high quality Belmore at an affordable price without illegal child labor. So I think... And that's what I love about this company is that we showed it, you don't really have to make a sacrifice as a consumer, you can still buy a great chuckle at a very good price and support associated contrition.

So the resources that you've just provided that you were just talking about, these principles, can you kind of come up with these plans to give to other chocolate companies and go in to give those resources?

So I think I really spoke a little bit about the three steps that we work on, we have this road map, grew about creating awareness, setting the example, which is like the whole principles of supply chain sourcing that we just spoke about, and then thirdly, inspiring other companies to do the same.

So I think in the United States, we're only just getting started, so we are just building awareness, we kind of have the models fired out because we've been doing it in Holland for so long already, but then we really are trying to take it to the next level and so we hired a team that we go like Tony's inside, to really help other companies now do the same, and it may depend on what the company needs and how we would help them, so we could do is on a consulting basis and offer them to help set up the model similar as what we do, or we may even go as far as just basically allowing other companies to buy... To buy our beans, and then by growing the impact that we have in West Africa.

That's amazing. So What can consumers do to help out?

So I think, first of all, I think consumers, and it not only goes for chocolate, but goes across many different categories, can look for the fair rate or another certification, like hoods, for example, label in order to make sure that they support better farming practices. Higher prices being paid to the farmer across the world, so that's a great first step. And then secondly, I think, 'cause humans also maybe need to realize that they have tremendous power with the dollars that they spend, so if they start to become more conscious and it's difficult, sometimes it's like... So there's so many issues across all the different things that you may be, but becoming more counters about the effect that you're spending has on the industry and making more coaches and supporting more socially environmentally responsible companies really can make a difference in pushing the larger companies to change the way to do business.

And where can we buy Tony's Caroline for... Well, obviously, it's a modern market and they've been a great supporter, but it's really like these companies that help us create awareness with consumers and take the next step.

Great, well, thank you so very much for your time, Peter, and some great advice, and we really appreciate your knowledge and we look forward to having you on again, but in the meantime, you can get more information on Peter, and the website is Tony's Chalon dot com. We look forward to your next visit. Thank you.

Thanks, thanks having me.

Thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show and for shopping at mother's market, the advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.