Child labour, exploitation and deforestation: Is this the true taste of chocolate?
“Let's compete at shelf but let's collaborate in the supply chain,” the CEO of Tony’s Chocolonely told Euronews.
“Do I want to double the size of the company? Of course I do,” the CEO of Tony’s Chocolonely, Douglas Lamont, told Euronews.
But unlike many business leaders, Douglas is not driven just by a desire to increase profits and growth. He wants to change the entire chocolate industry…and he has got a tough challenge ahead.
“More volume equals more beans, equals more impact on the ground for farmers [...] That's doubling the number of beans we're sourcing in an ethical way, paying a living income price to West African farmers.”
In this episode of The Big Question, Douglas sat down with Hannah Brown to discuss the real cost of chocolate and the challenges of fighting exploitation.
Exploitation in the chocolate industry
In case you are not already familiar with Tony’s Chocolonely, it is a chocolate manufacturer founded in 2005 by Dutch documentary producer Teun van de Keuken. Teun was horrified to learn about the scale of exploitation in the chocolate industry’s supply chain, and after his documentary exposing it failed to enact any change, he decided to try to make things better from inside the industry.
Fast-forward 21 years, and the company has already come a long way.
The vast majority of the chocolate we eat in Europe comes from cocoa beans grown in Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana. Across the industry, it is estimated that around 40% of households engaged in cocoa growing face instances of child labour.
Tony’s says it has reduced this figure within its own supply chain to around 4%
The key has been establishing a living wage for farmers, which they pay regardless of the current market price of cocoa.
“We give them long-term contracts, asymmetric contracts, so we will always buy from them at the living income price. They don't have to sell to us, if they get a higher price from somewhere else. It puts the power in their hands,” Douglas told The Big Question.
“Right now we're paying a 45% premium to the farmgate price in West Africa, so that combination of things means the farmer has a little bit more money in his pocket, can invest in his farm and can afford to send his children to school.”
Douglas stressed that traceability in the industry is an important first step to building relationships with cocoa farmers and that EU deforestation regulation will be fundamental in mandating this more widely.
“What it does in cocoa is put traceability into the mix so that every single company then needs to know which farms their cocoa comes from,” he added.
“Once you know your farmer, you then have a much more direct relationship and it's about the economic argument of then paying them a living income…in the past, the big companies said it was too hard for them to understand where it came from.”
What does chocolate really cost?
As one of the fastest-growing chocolate brands in the world, Tony’s Chocolonely is doing something right. Or maybe two things.
“We're not naive and know that if you've only got the ethics and it's really high-priced and it's a poor product, people won't buy it and won't repeat buy it.”
“I think we're showing that that is possible, and I think you just need a damn tasty product too, because that is the combination effect,” Douglas said.
In 2025, the brand grew in value by 20%, taking the business to over €240 million in turnover. By volume, their sales increased by 4% and the US overtook the Netherlands as their number one market.
While Tony’s Chocolonely is often perceived as a fairly expensive bar of chocolate, Douglas insisted that the company does not see itself as a super-premium brand.
“Our bar is really big and chunky compared to most bars on the shelf,” he explained.
“On a per kilogram basis, our chocolate is typically at a 20-25% premium to other bars on the shelf, which I think is a price worth paying.”
Will climate change wipe out chocolate?
Extreme weather in recent years has had a significant effect on cocoa harvests, sending the price of beans skyrocketing.
A rise in bean prices contributed to consumer chocolate prices increasing by around 17.9% across the EU in 2025, higher than any other food or even non-alcoholic drink. In 2026, this trend has partially reversed, with bean prices falling due to lower demand and improved harvests.
“We're not celebrating those low prices in the market. What we want is a consistent, strong living income price for the farmer [...] That's how we create a more stable industry. That's how we get children out of child labour. That's how we change the industry,” Douglas continued.
And while climate change is likely to continue to affect the price of cocoa in the future, Douglas said he is confident that chocolate is not going anywhere
“I think, like all commodities, if you invest in productivity, if you invest in the farmer and enable them to earn a living income so that it's an attractive industry for people on the ground in West Africa to go into, you'll have a more stable and consistent crop and yield.”
“And yes, you will then have climate variability year to year, but the change in yield will be much less if you have a much more invested industry.”
“But there's also then a moral benefit that we reduce child labour, we drive some of the systemic issues like deforestation out of the industry as well. So that's what we see as the path forward.”
“I think there's just a really clear economic and moral case for that change,” Douglas concluded.
The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.
Watch the video above to see the full discussion with Tony’s Chocolonely.
