Tony's Open Chain day 2024 - UK edition
We keep growing the movement to end exploitation in cocoa, together. And we are ready to have an impact on the cocoa industry in big ways!
On May 15, Tony’s Open Chain successfully hosted the second Tony’s Open Chain day, for the first time in the United Kingdom. This yearly event is a unique occasion for Tony's Open Chain to gather all cocoa industry frontrunners. From our committed partners to first hour and newer supporters of our mission, we all make advantage of this day we spend at an exclusive venue (this year at Tobacco Dock, Central London) to foster connections, learn and share more about Tony's Open Chain's tried and tested impact model to set a new norm in cocoa, and get inspired by other industry key-players' expertise and knowledge.
As Chris Baker – the inaugural keynote speaker of the day –, reminded us: there is a pressing necessity for businesses to do things differently and to embrace change as an opportunity. This urgency is even more acute for the hot commodity that is West African cocoa.
The acceleration of Tony’s Open Chain’s momentum since last year’s event is proof of that.
The powerful line-up of speakers taking the stage was yet another opportunity to showcase the potential of collective action and the necessity of rebalancing power with West Africa forward and co-op-centric approaches to ensure cocoa supply chains are future-proofed by enabling innovative solutions to cocoa main issues.
Together with the assembly of the day, we celebrated the strides we make towards our mission with the onboarding of eight new co-operatives and the joining of the first British retailers, with Waitrose bringing the current total of Mission Allies to 18 (three more names to be announced soon, stay tuned!).
This new edition of the Tony’s Open Chain event was a successful reaffirmation of our goals, our ambitions and our rallying cry to accelerate and expand the positive impact of our business-initiated efforts.
Speakers Program
Inaugural speaker Chris Baker
Momentum
Rianne van Doeveren and Joke Aerts – Tony’s Open Chain
Douglas Lamont – Tony’s Chocolonely
Moussa Doumbia – ECAM (partner co-operative)
Hienoupo Sekongo – COOBADI (partner co-operative)
Baroness Young of Hornsey – House of Lords
Impact & Innovation
Ama Mogyabun, Maame Ababio, Emmanuel Ankamah – Tony’s Open Chain Ghana
Stephen Ashia – ABOCFA (partner co-operative)
Dr. Steven Edgington – CABI
Hon. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah – Minister of Employment and Labour Relations
Frank Joosten – IDH
Katie Sims – Tony’s Open Chain
Aboudramane Traoré – CAYAT (partner co-operative)
Daouda Kouakou – SOCA2PD (partner co-operative)
Renzo Verne – Cocoasource
Acceleration
Jemima Jewell, Natalie Rockell and Giles Fisher – Waitrose
Sanne van Zon-Arts, Moctar Sangaré and Rianne van Doeveren – Tony’s Open Chain
This is what our guests had to say about the event
“Job well done, this event was buzzing!”
“Energetic, intimate, interactive”
"I was really happy being able to mingle and share with stakeholders within the supply chain about the TOC innovative programs and its impact on West- African cocoa farmers."
