Business

Allen Media-owned station KADN in Lafayette and Acadiana, La., laid off staff due to “economic challenges.” (TVSpy)Read More

The Financial Times made more than GBP500 million ($652.8 million) in revenue for the first time in its history in 2023. (Press Gazette)Read More

Ted Verity, editor of Mail Online, is becoming publisher and CEO of its parent company amid a shake-up to its leadership structure. DMG Media said it is preparing for continued digital innovation and further change amounting to “significant structural transformation” in the news industry. (Press Gazette)Read More

Beis, the six-year-old luggage company founded by actress and founder Shay Mitchell, is drumming up social media buzz from its employees. While competing luggage brands like Away and Monos give creators the keys to growing their social media followings, Beis is seeing the most social engagement from posts created by its own staff. For the…Read More

The first step in building a successful and elegant strategy is to see the systems that are part of our lives.

October is a fine month to take a moment to look closely at one: the system that brings us cheap chocolate.

Like most systems, it’s largely invisible. The people in it don’t mean to do harm, they’re simply making choices that feel like their best option. And most of all, the system works to defend itself, to create culture that defends the status quo.

The giant chocolate companies want cocoa beans to be a commodity. They don’t want to worry about origin or yield–they simply want to buy indistinguishable cheap cacao. In fact, the buyers at these companies feel like they have no choice but to push for mediocre beans at cut rate prices, regardless of the human cost.

As a result, trees are bred not for flavor or resilience, but for yield. Farming methods ignore regeneration and are maximized for short-term output. And most tragically, labor (especially children) is exploited and suffers. The farmer, feeling powerless, feels as though they have no choice but to make what the buyer wants.

The cheap beans are made into reliable, cheap chocolate. Chocolate that doesn’t melt in the store, or in your hands. Chocolate that’s sweet, not delicious. But cheap. The merchant stocking the shelves feels as though they have little choice–they buy the usual kind, the one that’s well promoted and inexpensive.

And this convenient, prevalent chocolate becomes the normal kind. The regular kind. The kind kids get on Halloween, in bulk.

It’s easier, sometimes, to just go with the system.

We’re not stuck in traffic, we are traffic. If we see a system, we can work to change it. Our strategy can use elements of the system to alter it.

The chocolate we buy at the supermarket furthers the goals of the system, and directly harms the lives of the impoverished farmers who grow the cacao.

My friend Shawn Askinosie has written about this eloquently, and I’m thrilled to be working with him and his daughter to create a collectible chocolate bar. You can find the details here.

Or consider the chocolate from French Broad. They were hit hard by the hurricane in North Carolina, but their warehouse survived. A few bars purchased from them make an impact.

The folks at Original Beans offer a Porcelana bar that is, honestly, too good to share with your friends, and certainly over the top for a trick or treater.

There’s an adorable store in New York that can ship you ethical and delicious bars from all over the world… proof that the system can change.

The team at Tony’s have figured out how to make an honest, fair trade bar that’s also in your local market at a good price.

And consider Chocolate Rebellion, a group of Caribbean and African producers coordinated by Gillian Goddard of Sun Eater.

The system responds.

Don’t buy cheap chocolate. We can see the system if we look for it.

PS I’m going live with Lawren and Shawn at 10:15 ET this morning. We’ll be taking your questions about chocolate and about systems, and the recording will be archived. Here’s the link.

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Hulu wants to immerse audiences into the world of Mexican boxing. La Maquina, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, premiered on Hulu this week, marking the streaming service’s first Spanish language-produced original series. Searchlight Television brought the idea to Hulu, according to Jordan Helman, executive vice president, drama, Hulu Originals and ABC Entertainment. The…Read More

Domino’s is fueling gaming sessions and solving beauty emergencies with a novel buy one, get one free offer in the second flight of its “Emergency Pizza” campaign from agency of record WorkInProgress. Domino’s Rewards members who spend $7.99 or more through Jan. 19 will receive an offer in their account for a free medium, two-topping…Read More

A suddenly roofless Tropicana Field. A construction crane toppling over and crashing into the Tampa Times offices. Those are some of the searing images that aired on the major networks when Hurricane Milton made landfall on the Florida Peninsula on Wednesday night as a Category 3 storm. Even as coverage shifts into recovery phase, those…Read More

Dateline Blayne: The Dateline NBC family grows with the addition of its newest correspondent, Blayne Alexander. Based in Atlanta and just back from maternity leave, Alexander has been with NBC News since 2019 and previously reported on the 2020 and 2022 elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, and nationwide protests around racial injustice. “Blayne Alexander is an…Read More

In 2017, I left my job as a creative in Hispanic marketing. I was tired of seeing brands push narratives that felt out of touch with my life and the lives of other young Latinos in the U.S. As an immigrant from Guatemala, I knew that the Latino experience here is diverse and nuanced. Yet,…Read More