Brand new ways with brand evangelism. A conversation with Ynzo Van Zanten

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To evangelize is an authoritative verb, a good omen with a clear meaning: to announce a good news, a victory. A term bestowing on itself different horizons than those observed daily, difficult to be dragged into the overspoken and finding new ways for its meaning. It should not be surprising if this verb, in its intimate sense, takes up space in the ranks of a company when it finds the reason for an additional profit in the income statement: a positive impact on the community from any point of view, as long as it is a winning one for all.

Therefore, Ynzo van Zanten is the brand evangelist of why there exists a chocolate without added slavery and of how to change the course of respect for rights. Here is the job of Ynzo van Zanten, Dutch brand evangelist of Tony’s Chocolonely, the chocolate bar with the ambition of bringing around the world an ethical value as important as taste: a 100% slave-free production. Free from slaves.

Data clearly show the extent of the feat. In Northern Europe, between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, according to Eurostat, more than 40 percent of European chocolate production is concentrated. Chocolate that cannot do without its raw material, cocoa beans, which – according to the latest data provided by the United Nations – are imported in particular from sub-Saharan Africa: Ivory Coast in the lead, with over 1 million 400 thousand tons a year, then Ghana (835 thousand tons), Nigeria (367 thousand), Cameroon (275 thousand) and to follow all the rest, between South America and Asia, where Indonesia stands out with its 777 thousand tons a year. Countries where slavery is a phenomenon not overcome at all. And it involves, and crushes in its gears, especially children. This is the message and the story Ynzo van Zanten talks about in his speeches that, before the pandemic, he was used to bring all over the world. Not only the famous TEDx Conferences, but also those organized by South by Southwest, the events promoted by Sustainable Brands, as well as interviews with international media that host ethical and cultural corners, such as CNN.

One of the representative figures of a company, called by CNN to talk about human rights. Here is the change of pace of the times, where credible sources are found for everyone’s sake. Companies and creators of enlightening corporate roles able to change the course. The main objective of evangelization is to inform and involve, to bring out the truth and to provide an example of correct intervention.

The bibliography from which the commitment and the evangel of Tony’s Chocolonely derives is now vast, from the data on the major cocoa bean exporting nations drawn up annually by FAO, to the Harkin Engel protocol, signed in 2001 by all the major chocolate brands to regulate the sector and achieve the goal of banning child labor within cocoa plantations by 2005. A signed but duly ignored protocol, precisely in those latitudes where its application could make the difference, as Ynzo tells in his speeches. The African plantations have in fact been so far away to disappear from radar and escape any control, under the banner of the banal out of sight, out of mind. So much so as to lead to a veiled, but not that much, collective admission of guilt. The World Cocoa Foundation, bringing together the world’s largest chocolate producers, has been forced to push its focus. How much? Twenty years, give or take a year. The new deadline for the commitment made by the organization is now 2025, indeed.

Also for this reason, Ynzo’s mission has seen an irresistible rise. Since the first bar packaged in 2005, in little over fifteen years Tony’s Chocolonely has gnawed the advantage of all competitors and has established itself in the Netherlands as the number one chocolate in the country. Certified B Corp, literally a company that «voluntarily and formally decides to produce concomitantly social and environmental benefits, while achieving its own profit results».

«I must admit that it’s no picnic – says Ynzo between an online webinar and the project of a new trip, now that the frontiers begin to reopen and he will return to clock up miles inasmuch as frequent flyer – but it is priceless for us to be able to prove that you can be financially successful also by taking on a precise ethical responsibility internal to the value chain. Difficult, in our view, neither can nor should mean impossible».

«We strongly believe that the combination of five specific sourcing principles represents the way towards a hundred percent slave-free chocolate on a global scale: traceable cocoa beans, a fair remuneration for the grower (the actual living income reference price), building long-term supply relationships, supporting growers in enhancing their productivity and cocoa bean quality, and – last but not least – the solidity of the growers themselves. All in-depth information can be found in our annual sustainability report, which we always take care to make available online». A good example of this process has been a chocolate bar dated 2005, when the brand began to put on the market five thousand bars produced according to a fairly traded processing method. That is Tony’s 25 26 Chocolonely’s answer to a market that was not accustomed to recognize the need for slave-free.

Given that you are a market leader in the Netherlands, booming on the world market, what is the difficult part you referred to?
Our rapid growth shows that people are authentically motivated towards this positive change, in cocoa industry as in a thousand other fields. But even though we are present in around thirty countries, with offices in the US, the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as in the Netherlands, the biggest challenge for us always remains the same: being able to create the necessary awareness about what still is the bitter reality of the cocoa industry, therefore ensuring that other brands too can make a necessary U-turn.

Yours is a bright practical example, as bright as the theory of the Oxford and Cambridge professor Kate Raworth also is, about the Doughnut Economy, a development paradigm for the twenty-first century promoting prosperity, more than growth alone…
Absolutely yes – and Kate was our very welcome speaker during our last annual fair. Growth for growth’s sake is simply pointless, for a resource-constrained planet. Growth can only take place for the positive impact’s sake; having an ethical entrepreneurial basis is crucial, with a view to a more equal, diverse, inclusive, fair system.

In the end, identifying a value for Tony’s Chocolonely represent a profit beyond profit , on a symbolic level – I’m thinking about the recent opening of a new venue of yours, in the heart of Amsterdam’s harbor, exactly where, in the past, boats loaded with slaves were used to land – as well as on a concrete one.
Of course. In our new chocolate shop, located indeed in a historic building in Amsterdam, we actively take care of showing information on the history belonging to that location. Financial success cannot be a goal in itself; or rather, we use it as a means towards a goal. In our case, the goal is crystal clear: a hundred percent slave-free chocolate on a worldwide scale.

Who supports you on your journey? It got me thinking about an Oompa-Loompa team with a high ethical level, working for a kind of Willy Wonka with an equally high ethical sense…
 Pharrell Williams is a great supporter of our mission, as Idris Elba is too. But let me point out a slight adjustment: although there can be a lot of similarities between Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory and us, we absolutely cannot include the Oompa-Loompas among them.

(Ed.’s Note: even Oompa-Loompas, under their sparkling uniforms and their hypnotic dance moves, are Mr. Wonka’s slaves, my bad).