The Chocolate Bar Race
On 29 September, 2007, Fairfood and Stop the Traffik, with the support of the Dutch political party, the Christen Unie, launched The Choclate Bar Race. This was a competition between the big cocoa companies active in the Netherlands (such as Nestlé, Masterfoods, Kraft Foods, United Biscuits Netherlands and Ferrero) to see whose chocolate bar was the most sustainable. The big question was: which candy bars should you or shouldn’t you buy?

Request for transparency
After months of urging the chocolate makers, most still wouldn’t give information regarding their production processes. The decision was made to organize a publicity stunt. The publicity stunt formed the final of the cocoa competition whereby chocolate makers were asked to make reasonable progress before the end of 2008. This progress should come in the form of excluding the worst kinds of child labour from their production process. Thanks to the publicity stunt and the lobby, Fairfood made contact with amongst others, Ferrero, Mars, Hema and Verkade (United Biscuits Netherlands).

Time for action!
On Tuesday 18 December 2007, Fairfood placed a full-page ad in ‘De Pers’ with the central question: 'Made by children’s hands'(‘Gemaakt door kinderhandjes')? Two chocolate makers in particular were put under the spotlight. In addition to this ad, cardboard cutouts of children demonstrated in front of the building of the Parliament in The Hague. Joël Voordewind (Christen Unie) and Sharon Gesthuizen (SP Social Party) were present for this protest. The cardboard children appeared in several national newspapers in the following days.  This publicity stunt drew attention to the worst forms of child labour, such as forced labour and hazardous work, in the cocoa industry.