Mondelez sues Tony’s Chocolonely

A critical marketing campaign by Tony’s Chocolonely has not gone down well with Mondelez: the multinational has sued the slave-free chocolate producer. Tony’s has responded with disappointment, saying this way the lawyers win – rather than the cocoa farmers.

Penalty

As part of a campaign with the slogan “Tony’s Fair Alternative”, the chocolate company had launched four temporary wrappers in Germany, parodying the design of well-known chocolate bars from Ferrero, Mars, Milka and Nestlé. The aim of the campaign was to raise awareness of the fact that the cocoa industry still uses illegal child labour and modern slavery.

However, the campaign was not to the liking of Mondelez, the producer of Milka: lilac chocolate packaging is a trademark infringement, argues the multinational, which was the only one of the four targeted manufacturers to take legal action. The Hamburg court acceded to Mondelez’s demand for a penalty payment for Tony’s Chocolonely’s use of the colour.

Wrong focus

While Tony’s Chocolonely announced that it will appeal the verdict, it will immediately stop selling the lilac chocolate bars and replacing them on the campaign website by a grey wrapper marked “formerly lilac”.

The slave-free chocolate producer added that while it is happy that its campaign gets a lot of attention this way, it is sad to see the focus on a lawsuit and money going to lawyers rather than both going to the cocoa farmers. The company adds that it calls on all chocolate companies to pay farmers a higher price in order to fundamentally address these issues, instead of using lawyers to avoid that discussion.