a better block

It all began when Teun was investigating the cocoa industry for Keuringsdienst van Waarde, a popular consumer watchdog TV program in the Netherlands. His goal was to educate his audience, but in the end, he was the one whose eyes were opened the widest.

Beneath the shiny wrappers and saccharine advertising, Teun discovered the chocolate industry was rife with inequality, child labour and modern-day slavery. He reached out to big brands for answers, and to lobby them to source slavery-free cocoa, but his concerns fell on deaf ears. Frustrated, Teun took matters into his own hands: he filmed himself eating 17 chocolate bars, hired a lawyer and took himself to court for ‘knowingly purchasing illegally produced products’. To back up his case, Teun travelled to Ivory Coast to find former child slaves to testify against him in court. “If I am found guilty of this crime, any chocolate consumer can be prosecuted after that,” Teun told the judge. “I hope that people would stop buying chocolate and thus hurt the sales