Real Ingredients
We went 'back to basics', building our recipes from scratch, with just 5 key ingredients:
- Shed-loads of sustainable cocoa
- A generous dollop of fresh British organic cream and butter
- Just enough sugar
- A drizzle of British wildflower honey
- A pinch of Dorset sea salt
We have selected these ingredients carefully, with both taste and sustainability in mind.
The magic is as much what we put-in as what we've left out.
Here's the important bit: because we use fresh cream, you will need to keep our chocolates in the fridge and eat them within about 4 weeks - although we'd be surprised if they hang around that long!
If you'd like to discover a little more, read on...
Most of our chocolate centres come from Casa Luker (photo above) - a family business who have been growing cocoa and making sustainable chocolate in Colombia for 113 years. Their Fino de Aroma cocoa is amongst the world's finest. They work directly with over 50 cocoa farmer cooperatives to train, educate and promote sustainable and profitable cocoa models that increase their income and quality of life and in 2011 started to plant cocoa forests in regions of Colombia heavily impacted by armed conflict.
The 100% Solomon Islands Cocoa that we use in our Extra Rich Dark comes from Firetree Cocoa, a producer which prides themselves on sourcing the highest quality beans and paying more than twice the average farm-gate price for it, directly to the farmer.
The chocolate outer shells we use are typically from Frey in Switzerland who develop a beautifully smooth and rounded taste that compliments the fruity notes in our centres. The cocoa comes direct from Frey’s partnership programs with local farmers' organisations and cooperatives. They have financed a number of projects ranging from water pumps in Ghana, to the construction of a hospital ward in Ivory Coast.
Our organic milk comes from Cotteswold Dairy, whose organic farms are all within 12 miles of the dairy. Cotteswold graze their cows for over half the year on pasture and most of the farms allow the cows to choose when they would like to be milked.
Our honey comes from the father & daughter Wainwright family business. The Summer Wildflower Honey is from their own hives on Salisbury Plain. The honey has a distinctive perfumed cinnamon note and golden yellow colour.
The honey is produced and packed in small batches, to make sure that the flavours keep their intensity, and cold-pressed to maintain quality and taste
And finally, we add a little pinch of salt for flavour. The Dorset Sea Salt is hand-harvested from Britain’s purest waters along the Jurassic coastline to produce a clean, pure and fresh taste. The salt is produced by harnessing eco-friendly and low carbon production methods, supported by low carbon Dorset group
The production facility is powered by an on-site wind turbine and solar panels to help keep the carbon footprint low.