Changing the world one chocolate bar at a time… a group of Dutch journalists take a stand against the use of slavery in the cocoa industry by creating their own slave-free brand of chocolate called Tony’s Chocolonely.
From acclaimed director Benthe Forrer, The Chocolate Case tells the story of three Dutch investigative journalists, Teun van de Keuken, Maurice Dekkers and Roland Duong, who decide to tackle slavery in the chocolate industry by making their own slave-free chocolate bar.
The journey began just over 10 years ago when they were inspired by an expose (produced by Forrer and Dekkers) on the consumer report show Food Unwrapped (Keuringsdienst van Waarde) revealing that most of the chocolate on supermarket shelves, even the ones purported to be Fair Trade, were being harvested by child slaves in West Africa. They were so appalled they decided to do something about it.
After many relentless and inventive, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to persuade large corporations to end the practice of using child slave labour in the chocolate industry, the three young men decided to take matters into their own hands. Despite having no experience they managed to create their very own slave-free chocolate called Tony’s Chocolonely, straight from bean to bar, which has become a best seller and one of the largest brands in Holland.
Their long journey towards a slave-free cocoa world has been recorded since 2003. A treasure of archive material combined with new material has resulted in an uptempo, funny, sometimes moving, but overall inspiring film.
Ultimately, it shows that it isn’t easy to do good in the world and to change fundamental errors in the corporate system, but that it is possible. With a large dose of humor and unceasing ambition, ‘everybody can be a Tony, you just need to start somewhere.’
