Integrating health into agricultural supply chains has long been discussed but rarely implemented at scale. Too often, healthcare for farming communities depends on short-term projects or parallel systems, rather than being embedded into how supply chains function day to day.

Through our partnership with Tony’s Chocolonely, we are helping demonstrate how healthcare access can be designed as part of a cocoa supply chain. This work is made possible through collaboration with Tony’s Open Chain, the Chocolonely Foundation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and local government partners, and is currently being implemented across cocoa-growing communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

Tony’s Chocolonely was shortlisted among the Top 5 out of 2,000 submissions at the UNIDO One World Sustainability Awards. Their application highlighted our work together in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It is a clear signal that this approach – putting health at the heart of the supply chain – is delivering results!

Meet Tony’s Chocolonely, The Chocolonely Foundation, and Tony’s Open Chain

Founded in 2005 in the Netherlands, Tony’s Chocolonely is more than a fast-growing chocolate manufacturer. It’s a social enterprise with a bold vision: to make all chocolate 100% exploitation-free.

Next to Tony’s Chocolonely itself is the Chocolonely Foundation: established in 2008 when Tony’s Chocolonely began turning a profit, is an independent organization funded by 1% of Tony’s annual turnover. While sharing Tony’s mission, it operates separately to support initiatives beyond the direct cocoa supply chain. The Foundation focuses on projects in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana that promote decent livelihoods, drive systemic change, and challenge the status quo.

At the heart of Tony’s Chocolonely’s movement to make chocolate exploitation free is Tony’s Open Chain, their industry-led initiative that supports partners in transforming cocoa sourcing by embedding five core sourcing principles: traceable cocoa beans, higher prices, strong farmers, long-term partnerships, and better quality and productivity. But Tony’s vision goes beyond the farmgate: it’s about building resilient cocoa communities where people can thrive.

That’s where Elucid comes in.

Tony’s recognize that a truly sustainable supply chain depends on the well-being of cocoa farming families. We’re honored to collaborate with them on pioneering health programs in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, to make healthcare access the next frontier in ethical cocoa.

Our Collaboration in practice

In Ghana, our program with Tony’s currently reaches more than 3,000 families across 49 health facilities. Since launching in early 2024, it has supported almost 12,000 doctor’s visits. Over half of people accessing care are female, marking an important step toward gender health equity.

The impact is already visible, as shown through independent evaluations of Elucid’s work in Ghana:

• 91% of participants report better access to healthcare,
• 90% say their household’s health has improved,
• 93% report a higher quality of life.

This progress encouraged Tony’s Open Chain and the Chocolonely Foundation to scale the program to Côte d’Ivoire, where around 4,500 families are now being enrolled across cocoa farming communities. As more households join and additional health facilities come on board, the reach of the program continues to grow.

By improving access to care, especially for women, the program strengthens resilience, supports stable incomes, and contributes to sustainable farming. Health is becoming a foundation for progress on education, productivity, and environmental stewardship throughout the supply chain.

Stronger together: Gavi and Research Collaborations

Our work with Tony’s is part of a broader ecosystem of partners helping to scale health access on the ground. In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, this includes Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, where we support vaccine uptake, deploy mobile clinics for maternal health, and contribute to vaccine rollout efforts.

This work is urgently needed: in some of our intervention areas, HPV and malaria vaccine coverage remains below 5 %. Over the next three years, our campaigns aim to reach more than 200,000 children.

Beyond vaccination, we collaborate with partners such as Restoring Vision for eye screenings, and work with national health authorities – such as the Ghana Health Service – to ensure essential services reach cocoa farming families across all programs areas.

Our work is backed by continuous research and monitoring. With support from Gavi, we are collaborating with academic partners, including the University for Development Studies in Ghana, Université Alassane Ouattara in Côte d’Ivoire, the Institute for Transformation in Development, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin to assess our impact over time. Initial findings are expected soon and will guide future scale-up.

The bottom line

This recognition is not just a milestone – it is evidence that health-integrated supply chains can move from ambition to execution.

Together, we’re proving that ethical sourcing isn’t a nice-to-have but a strategic direction. A health-integrated cocoa supply chain shows that it’s possible to tackle poverty, child labour, and environmental harm while improving lives at scale.

By 2027, Tony’s Chocolonely aims to be the first chocolate company to guarantee healthcare access for all farming households in its supply chain, an ambitious goal but within reach thanks to this model and the partnerships behind it.

As Tony’s Chocolonely´s CEO Douglas Lamont noted during the nomination:

We believe that as a B-Corp we should also give back to the communities from which we source. That’s why our commitment to 1% of our revenue through the Chocolonely Foundation is so important. It allows us to invest alongside our supply chain model in supporting the communities. In healthcare, in schooling, in project-enablement through the local community. So, whether it’s with Elucid and Gavi, where we’ve done a number of really important healthcare projects to lift up the local community, alongside paying living-income pricing for our cocoa, that combination has proved to be very powerful, and is a real driver of change that we’re very proud of.

Being shortlisted as one of the Top 5 out of 2,000 for the UNIDO Sustainability Award shows what is possible when purpose, transparency, and equity guide our work. This moment belongs to all partners involved.

To our partners: thank you for your courage and commitment. And to everyone pushing for a fairer supply chain, this moment is yours too. Let’s keep building it together.