If you look any chocolate bar or box there it’s easy to see that some manufacturers use plastic liberally from the wrapping on the outside to the trays on the inside.

You might not notice that that the ribbon is made from Polyester (a manmade plastic) , the Ink that stops the cardboard from being recycled, the label with a manmade glue or plastic coating, or the hidden plastic coating the inside of a gift box all of which means that there is a risk of harming the environment around us.

As a small company we can’t change every supplier we work with, but we are encouraging every single of them to follow our lead.

…. and what have we done? We have made the decision to eliminate where possible plastic from our packaging so that it can be recycled.

It’s been tough, but we are pleased to say that all of the chocolates we make and pack ourselves is now available in 100% recyclable, plastic free packaging.

We believe it’s wasteful to send half empty lorries around the country so we always share our transport with other companies which minimises the number of vehicles on the road, uses less fuel and results in less harm to the environment. We also choose to work with couriers that are actively working to reduce their own impact on the environment, if they aren’t making an effort then we won’t use them.

Some of the big chocolate brands use Palm Oil to replace cocoa butter because it’s much cheaper; we have never and will never do that, it’s our commitment to you that any chocolate used by us, or the chocolatiers we work with will be made with 100% cocoa butter: no palm oil, no vegetable fat.

Some of the chocolatiers we work with do use Palm Oil in their fillings because it provides a great way of making great tasting mousses, cremes and other fillings , but the Palm Oil they use is always sustainable.

We started out wanting to remove Palm Oil from every product that we sell, but after reading about Palm Oil and the benefits of sustainable production we are happy that they use, and only use Sustainably Farmed Palm Oil: https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/palm-oil (and of course none of our ice cream uses palm oil!).

We’ve looked at the benefits of Fairtrade to the industry and to the farmers in particular, and have come to the conclusion that it’s not the best way to help them, we’re not the only company to come to that conclusion Cadburys stopped moved away from Fairtrade in 2016.

After consulting with industry bodies and our suppliers we have decided to focus on helping the Cocoa farmers improve farming techniques, reduce their costs and improve their yields so that they can make more money.

We already sponsor Cocoa Trees and each year the number of trees we sponsor grows  and by making a small donation you can help us sponsor even more.

We are happy to say that every single one of our suppliers has a slavery policy in place and is working hard to eliminate any type of forced labour, child or otherwise.

Eliminating child labour in cocoa producing countries is hard because it’s a way of life and, sometimes an economic necessity, but we are pleased that our industry is so committed to making a change.