Two Dutch journalists investigating child slavery in cocoa farming staged a viral stunt by calling police on themselves for eating slave-made chocolate. They launched Tony's Chocolonely to prove ethical sourcing was possible, selling 20,000 bars in two days and growing to $200 million in annual revenue.
These two Dutch journalists, they're covering the chocolate industry. All the cocoa comes from West Africa, and that there's a lot of child slavery and child labor. They decide to do a publicity stunt. He calls the police and he goes, "I'm eating chocolate that was made with slave labor and child labor. Is the product of child labor and slave labor. That's actually illegal. Arrest me, boys." And that becomes this viral news stunt that brings even more attention to this. They decide to go in and create their own ethically made chocolate brand, and they decide to call it Tony's Chocolonely. He said it's gonna be very lonely to build a chocolate company that's actually trying to be, like, ethically sourced. And it becomes a hit pretty much right away. They sell 20,000 bars in 2 days because of the public resonance with their story. And last year they did $200 million in revenue, and they've made this a legit chocolate company.
