Film Synopsis: The Chocolate Case

Can a globalised food system ever be truly ethical?

This engaging and thoughtful documentary tracks three Dutch journalists’ decade-long efforts to end the chocolate industry’s reliance on child labour and worker exploitation.

Affable and with a penchant for absurdist pranks (The Yes Men, anyone?), the three friends ran a TV show investigating unsafe, often unsavoury practices in the food sector. Shocked both by lack of progress on workers’ rights in cocoa plantations and public apathy towards this modern-day slavery, they embarked on a high-profile campaign to expose this reality. Their investigations uncovered serious failings, even among fairtrade producers, so they put their money where their sweet tooth was: they turned from journalists to entrepreneurs, setting out to make a “100% slave-free” chocolate bar.