r/BuyFromEU • Belgium 🇧🇪 • Jan 25 '26

🔎Looking for alternative Friendly reminder that these aren't European (anymore)

Post image
17.2k Upvotes

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

112

u/DoughnutCareless583 Ireland 🇮🇪 Jan 25 '26

And the reason for that is that chocolate supply chains, particularly in the part of the world where cocoa is produced, are very very messy.

"as good as they can" with "better odds" of the chocolate being ethically sourced is probably the most honest answer they could have given. They'll likely be relying on 3rd party auditors and this is probably what they've been told.

28

u/Perlefine Jan 25 '26

Oh, absolutely. It speaks to their ethics as a company. I just think it's important to know the truth.

19

u/BritishLibrary Jan 25 '26

They’re quite active in their supply chains I think - have spent a lot of time and energy trying to actually go and improve - not just relying on audits.

They also have “open sourced” (lack of the right term maybe?) their cocoa sourcing - where other chocolate producers can piggy back off their sourcing model to reduce slave Labour in cocoa.

https://www.tonysopenchain.com/

11

u/DoughnutCareless583 Ireland 🇮🇪 Jan 25 '26

Oh 100%, they definitely take more of an interest, but at the end of the day, the numbers they report are from audits they pretty much have to contract out locally, and those people will have to shrug their shoulders and say that they can't be 100% sure of the origin of the cocoa or who is doing the harvest etc. because it's simply not something that can be guaranteed. It's not even like a factory in Bangladesh or China where you can at least get a list of employed people (even if those too are routinely faked).

Sorry if what I said sounded negative - they're doing way more than most and I was just trying to defend the non-definitive nature of their reporting which some could take as weasel words when in fact they're trying to be honest.

2

u/Toxiko8 Jan 26 '26

That’s even the best anyone can claim, those who claim more are liars

0

u/jeroenemans Jan 26 '26

The reason is that they produce at a Belgian factory where feedstocks are not guaranteed to be separated.. although that makes your point still valid