The brief

Charlotte Martens from Tony's Chocolonely reached out ahead of their FBI department outing — FBI standing for Finance, Business Intelligence and IT, not the other kind. The request was clear: "We want the team to connect, get to know each other better, to have fun and to learn something about Antwerp and their team mates."

The group was 25 confirmed, with a few pending — somewhere between 25 and 35 people. The date was set for Tuesday 9 June 2026, afternoon start around 13:00–13:30. No fixed venue requirement beyond the city itself. Antwerp was the venue.

What separated this enquiry from a standard booking was how clearly Tony's Chocolonely had thought about personalisation from the start. They didn't want a generic Treasure Hunt. They wanted an afternoon that felt like it belonged to their team — shaped by the company's own values and tested by questions only someone who genuinely knew Tony's could answer.

Tony's Chocolonely team members navigating Antwerp streets during the Treasure Hunt
Teams exploring the Antwerp city centre — the hunt route passed some of the city's most recognisable landmarks.

The design decisions that mattered

With a well-defined brief and a group that knew each other professionally but wanted to deepen those connections, we designed around three interlocking elements:

1. Company Values Activities — five challenges, ten minutes each. Tony's Chocolonely has five company values: OUTSPOKEN, IN IT TOGETHER, MAKES YOU SMILE, ENTREPRENEURIAL, and RAISE THE BAR. We turned each one into a physical team challenge, scattered across the route. Complete the challenge and submit photographic proof — 10 minutes is deducted from your team's final time. The challenges ranged from the theatrical (photograph your whole team acting like impassioned public speakers standing on benches or stairs, for OUTSPOKEN) to the physically demanding (at least two team members must be lifted off the ground by the rest of the team, for RAISE THE BAR). Each one required discussion, coordination, and something close to genuine commitment from everyone involved.

2. Company Quiz — ten questions, five minutes each. Ten questions about Tony's Chocolonely — business figures, Open Chain details, internal facts about the FBI team itself. Correct answer: 5 minutes off your time. The questions weren't easy. One asked about the number of cocoa farmers reached through Tony's Open Chain. Another asked how many nationalities work in the FBI team. The quiz ran in parallel with the Treasure Hunt and the values activities, which meant teams had to decide at each stage where to invest their time.

Tony's Chocolonely team attempting one of the company values activities during the Antwerp Treasure Hunt
One of the five Company Values Activities in action — each challenge required the whole team to participate to count.

3. Professional photographer. Placed with the group for the full afternoon, covering all teams across the route. For a department outing with a strong focus on team connection, the photographs are as much part of the deliverable as the event itself. The values activities were designed with photography in mind — RAISE THE BAR in particular generates spectacular shots — and the photographer was briefed to capture the natural moments between the structured challenges, not just the posed ones.

Tony's Chocolonely colleagues collaborating on a Treasure Hunt puzzle in Antwerp
Teams worked through Treasure Hunt puzzles alongside the two custom scoring elements — the competition was real throughout.

What happened on the day

The FBI team gathered early afternoon. The briefing covered the three scoring elements: standard Treasure Hunt puzzles (solved at locations across the Antwerp city centre), Company Values Activities (photo proof required for each), and the Company Quiz (answers submitted via the app). Teams set off within minutes of each other.

The values activities ran exactly as designed — and produced some of the loudest moments of the afternoon. IN IT TOGETHER (link the entire team in a human circle around a tree, streetlamp, or willing stranger) required negotiation about which object to use and whether grabbing a passer-by was technically in the spirit of the challenge. ENTREPRENEURIAL (photograph your team using objects in completely the wrong way to solve a fictional problem) generated genuine creativity — one team used their map as an umbrella, another positioned a bin as a rocket booster. RAISE THE BAR (at least two members must be physically lifted by the rest of the team) caused exactly the deliberation you'd expect before anyone left the ground.

Tony's Chocolonely team members completing the RAISE THE BAR company values activity
RAISE THE BAR — at least two members lifted off the ground by the rest of the team. Every group found their own interpretation.

The quiz questions produced a different kind of engagement. Several answers were genuinely unknown to participants — including some who worked in Finance and Business Intelligence and hadn't known the size of Tony's data warehouse. One question — how many people are in Team FBI — caused a full team argument about whether a recent new hire counted. The question about the company's largest market by revenue split teams almost exactly down the middle.

Tony's Chocolonely FBI team running through Antwerp historic city centre during the Treasure Hunt
Teams covered the Antwerp historic city centre at pace — the time-deduction scoring kept everyone motivated to keep moving.

Teams returned across a roughly 20-minute window. The competition had been real throughout: the scoring structure — time from values activities, time from quiz answers, time on the Treasure Hunt itself — meant the rankings shifted until the final tally. The team that finished the route quickest wasn't necessarily the winner.

Tony's Chocolonely team celebrating after completing the Antwerp Treasure Hunt
The score reveal — the leaderboard shifted multiple times as values activity proofs and quiz answers were tallied.

Results

"Contact with Treasure Hunt Antwerp was super smooth and we were able to customize the activity to include our company values and some quiz questions about the team. On site we had a wonderful tourguide and photographer that explained the game super well, and were easy and enjoyable to talk to. The teams had a blast running all around Antwerp, learning about its history and share some laughs along the way. The competition was real and everyone wanted to win the great prizes the guide had picked out. In the end we had a super fun afternoon with only smiling faces!"

— Manon de Bree, Tony's Chocolonely

  • All participants completed the full event — no dropouts or early returns
  • The competition element was highlighted across the board; the multi-layer scoring kept engagement high from start to finish
  • The values activities generated photographs that doubled as a team album — the kind of images that end up on a company Slack channel for weeks
  • The personalisation (quiz + values) was singled out in the review as what made the afternoon feel like theirs rather than a generic activity
Smiling Tony's Chocolonely team members after completing the Treasure Hunt in Antwerp
The end of the afternoon — Manon de Bree's description: "only smiling faces."

What we'd adjust

Two custom add-ons running simultaneously — values activities and a quiz — adds briefing complexity. Teams need to understand three scoring mechanisms (Treasure Hunt time, values activity deductions, quiz deductions) before they start. For this group, the briefing held without issues. For a group less familiar with competitive formats, we'd consider scaffolding the introduction slightly — presenting the base Treasure Hunt first, then layering in the two custom elements.

The MAKES YOU SMILE activity (one member tells a terrible joke while the rest produce their biggest forced laugh) was the most variable in execution across teams. The concept was clear, but the standard of delivery differed widely. Adding a sample reference image at the briefing stage would set a clearer target and raise the average result.

Tony's Chocolonely team members laughing together during the Treasure Hunt in Antwerp
The MAKES YOU SMILE values activity — one person tells a terrible joke while the rest commit to the biggest fake laugh they can manage.

For groups planning a similar event — a department outing with company-specific content — the earlier the quiz questions and values descriptions land with us, the tighter the integration. We had everything we needed in good time for this event; the result was a format where the custom elements felt native to the hunt rather than appended to it. For guidance on the practical planning decisions, the step-by-step planning guide for corporate team building in Antwerp covers everything from group size to timing.