What Is Reverse Trick-or-Treating and How Does Slave Free Chocolate Suggest Using It?

Reverse Trick-or-Treating is a simple awareness tactic described on Slave Free Chocolate: instead of only handing out candy on Halloween, you attach a small note to each piece you give away. The note is meant to tell the recipient about child labor and slavery in the cocoa industry, so the ordinary act of trick-or-treating becomes a chance for someone else to learn about the issue. It is low-effort and works for an individual, a family, or anyone handing out candy.

How the idea works

The website's description is deliberately plain. You take the candy you were already planning to distribute, and you attach a small note to each piece. When a child or parent receives the candy, they also receive the message.

The purpose is not to collect money or signatures. It is to spread awareness and let people educate themselves on the issue. The Halloween exchange — normally just candy for a costume — becomes a small moment of information sharing.

Why Slave Free Chocolate frames it this way

The site's broader argument is that the cocoa industry has known about exploited child labor for decades without fixing it. It notes that the U.S. Department of Labor announced in December 2020 that 1.6 million children were working illegally, with a percentage trafficked and held as slaves, and that 20 years had passed since candy companies admitted accountability and promised to remedy the situation while the numbers of exploited children only increased.

It also points out that the candy industry is a US $100-billion-dollar industry, and argues the companies profiting are the ones that have to fix it — starting by paying a lot more for the beans they buy, because a farmer making less than $2.00 cannot afford to hire adult labor.

Against that backdrop, Reverse Trick-or-Treating fits the site's approach: ordinary people can't set cocoa prices, but they can change what the people around them know. The site pairs this with its Ethical List, which highlights companies it considers to be "Slave-Free the Whole Way Through," and with other awareness efforts such as a comedic buy-on-point video by Torry Hermann (IG @torryhermann).

What you need to do it

• Candy to hand out, as you normally would on Halloween.
• A small note for each piece — the site's model is a short printed message about child labor in the cocoa industry.
• No special permission, registration, or cost is described on the site.

Steps

1. Decide you are handing out candy this Halloween.
2. Prepare a small note with a brief message about child slavery in the cocoa industry.
3. Attach one note to each piece of candy.
4. Hand them out as usual. The recipient gets the candy and the message together.

What to expect

The result is awareness, not a measurable campaign. Someone who receives the note may read it, ask a question, or look into the issue later. Because the note travels with the candy, the message reaches people who were not looking for it — which is the point of putting it inside a familiar holiday ritual rather than a petition or a boycott.

Common snags

• Notes get separated from candy. Attaching the note securely matters; a loose slip is easy to drop.
• Message too long. A short note is more likely to be read than a page of text.
• Recipients may not engage. The tactic assumes some curiosity. It is an opening, not a guaranteed conversation.
• It doesn't change company behavior by itself. The site's own position is that the companies profiting from the system are the ones who have to fix it; Reverse Trick-or-Treating is an awareness tool, not a substitute for that.

Where it fits

If your goal is to do something concrete with minimal effort, Reverse Trick-or-Treating is the lowest-barrier option the site describes. If your goal is to direct spending, the site's Ethical List is the companion tool — it exists because, as the site puts it, with every chocolate company "claiming" to care for its farmers and children, it's hard for the ethical ones to compete.