Tony's Chocolonely leave Advent calendar day empty in 'woke' message

Children have been reduced to tears over a chocolate company's decision to leave one window in their advent calendar empty, with the intention of highlighting slave labour policies and inequality.

The 'fairtrade' Dutch company, Tony's Chocolonely, says it wanted to highlight the practices outlined within the chocolate manufacturing industry.

Tony's Chocolonely deliberately left the advent calendar door for December 8th empty with a message of explanation given.

Parents have taken to the company's social media pages to vent their frustrations.

One mother, Rebecca Winward, said: "My eight-year-old daughter was in floods of tears at the disappointment. She has ADHD and is awaiting a possible autism diagnosis, so what seems like small upsets to others are a big deal to her".

Another mother said it was "wrong" of Tony's "not to pre-warn".

The company says it made up for the lack of chocolate with extra goodies given on December 9th and 24th.

Tony's £12.99 product has been sold in the UK via outlets such as Waitrose and Ocado, and admit that the advent calendar: "'inappropriate and caused confusion and disappointment'".

The chocolate company say cocoa farmers are trapped in poverty because large chocolate companies pay them so poorly. The message given in the advent calendar looks to highlight this.

Tony's spokeswoman Nicola Matthews said: 'There was a message next to 8 on the left-hand side explaining that our calendar was unequally divided.

'Our intention was to increase issue awareness because only when people are aware that there is a bitter side to the chocolate industry can they choose more consciously and demand change from the big chocolate companies.'