5 questions to Kim van Drie, marketing manager at Hands off my chocolate

Over the past few years, many truths have been revealed about our current capitalist model: severe income inequality and the belief that improving lives and caring for the environment can be sacrificed for better profit margins. The change makers in the growing Certified B Corporations community are demanding an end to the myth that profit comes at the expense of purpose, and care for the environment and society. It's time to wake up, it's time for action.

At Blyde, we believe in questioning the status quo. We believe in the strength of the collective, in taking a stand and inspiring people by showing what can and should be changed. In our Wake Up Calls, Blyde inspires a desire for positive change. We're listening to various B Corps voices speak about their call to action for companies around the world today. By letting people from different perspectives and companies have their say, we want to highlight the important role of business in this decade of action. 'On stage' today: change agent Kim van Drie, marketing manager at Hands Off My Chocolate.

What was your wake-up call to contribute to a better world?For us, this was when we developed and introduced our first vegan bar during the corona pandemic and thereby delved more into the CO2 emissions of chocolate. That's how we found out that it is much higher than we thought (as high as pork!) and that as much as 50% of this is caused by the milk. Because we did not use milk in our bar, its emissions were more than 40% lower. This was really a wake-up call, where we decided to remove all milk chocolate from our range and switch entirely to plant-based chocolate. Because why, we thought, would we still want to be part of the polluting dairy industry, when you can make just as delicious chocolate without milk.

Can you share an example of how your company took a stand and inspired positive change in your sector or community, and what impact did it have?
With our plant-based chocolate, we hope to inspire people to choose a plant-based alternative more often. We do everything we can to make our chocolate as delicious as possible and prove that milk is really no longer necessary. Our position, therefore, is that plant-based chocolate should become the norm. We are pleased to see that more companies are following us and bringing plant-based chocolate to the market. Because the more plant-based food is eaten, the more impact is made.

What are the most important lessons you've learned about making a positive impact in the past and how will you apply them today?
It can sometimes be quite difficult to combine positive impact with a product that is tasty and affordable. Our market is dominated by big chocolate factories and plant-based chocolate making, they weren't really waiting for that. But I've learned that if you stick to your values and principles and see how it can become a “yes” with every “no”, a lot is possible. If innovation and pioneering were easy, many more people would do it. But now we are paving the way for more plant-based chocolate in the future.

If you could invite one company to join the B Corp community, which company would it be and why?
I think AH is already working on it, but it would be great if the major supermarket chains in the Netherlands also became B-Corp. The supermarket is an important player in the chain from many very nice impact brands to consumers.

What are some of the next steps and ambitions for the coming months/years?
We have completely tackled the plant-based part and we are already making a lot of impact with this. But of course, we don't close our eyes to the cocoa in our chocolate. At the end of 2023, we switched to traceable cocoa. Our ambitions for the coming months are to dive deeper into our chain and map the deforestation rates of our chocolate. This also allows us to make the LCA calculation of our products even more specific. We also want to focus on agroforestry projects to contribute to greener and healthier cocoa plantations.

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