Luisa’s Vegan Chocolate (Nottingham) pays cocoa farmers up to 65% more than average. This is helping families to earn incomes from growing cocoa (a ‘peace crop’ that can be grown in identical farming conditions to illegal drug crops).
Avoid caffeine for pregnancy/nursing. Keep chocolate away from pets, due to cocoa, dried fruits, nuts, salt, xylitol (use a letterbox guard for online orders). Read more on food safety for people & pets.
The range includes:
- Double hazelnut crunch
- Hazelnut ‘mylk’ chocolate
- Choc-oat-late oat milk
- Casho-late with orange
- Wild-rose infused chocolate
- Gingerbread chocolate
- Advent calendars
Despite chocolate and drinking chocolate being popular, most brands pay very little to cocoa farmers and most bars add refined sugar and palm oil. From the Aztec word for ‘xocoatl’, commercial chocolate bars are only around 150 years old, with sugar added as cocoa is too bitter (white chocolate is cacao butter).
Packaging is complicated for chocolate (and coffee) as contents must be sealed to avoid spoilage. Ideally choose paper or tins (some ‘biodegradable packaging’ is made with flammable eucalyptus trees – Spain and Portugal are already banning new plantations, due to wildfires).
artisan vegan chocolate from Gloucestershire
Coco Caravan (Gloucestershire) offers handcrafted organic vegan chocolate, sweetened with coconut blossom nectar. The range includes small-bite bars. Crafted by a gifted chocolatier, these chocolate bars are grouped in a way similar to wine, telling you where the cocoa is from, rather than ‘flavours’. The range includes chocolate bars sourced with cocoa from:
- Brazil
- Guatemala
- Mexico
- Colombia
- Jamaica
- Guayaquil
- Cuba
- Ecuador
- Peru
The company also makes bean-to-bar specials that support heirloom cacao growers, and offer flavoured chocolates including:
- Sweet orange
- Hazelnut currant
- Coconut milk
- Chai dark chocolate
- Fully minty
- Tamari almond
- Date caramel
And even offers boxes of ‘fruit in dark chocolate’:
- Dark dates
- Sweet figs
- Chocolate plums
And a chai chocolate drink mix, to make a comforting hot drink.
coconut-sweetened raw organic chocolate
Raw chocolate is a bit healthier, but very expensive. For a unique treat, it’s worth trying. It does taste different, but is not quite so addictive! Raw Halo is made with coconut and lucuma (a superfood that tastes like maple). Produced in a social enterprise, the range is packed in aluminium foil and paper, which are both widely recycled. The range includes:
- Plain
- Salted caramel
- Orange
- Mint
- Raspberry
- Mylk chocolate (vanilla, pink salt, salted caramel, hazelnut truffle)
Mr Popple’s (raw) organic vegan chocolate
Mr Popple’s Chocolate is made with all organic ingredients, and no palm oil. The cacao is grown organically. The cacao used for these bars use agroforestry techniques to let cacao trees grow inside, so protecting Amazon rainforests. Made with minimal ingredients, the Pure Peruvian bar has just one ingredients, and even the most complex vegan Mylk chocolate bars have just 6 ingredients. Free from refined sugar, these bars are sweetened naturally with coconut sugar, yacon syrup (tastes like caramel) or lucuma powder (a superfood that tastes a bit like maple shortbread). The range includes:
- Creamy mylk
- Dark mylk
- Europhic orange
- Pure Peruvian (dark)
Limited editions
- Minty mylk
- Amarillo chilli
- Creamy orange
luxury vegan organic chocolates from Norfolk
If you’re after a traditional ‘box of chocolates’, Booja Booja (Norfolk) sells luxury versions in beautiful gift boxes, illustrated by Persian artists from a social enterprise in Kashmir. This gives employment to a declining papier mache industry, and the company also makes luxury vegan Easter eggs. Most artists work from home in cold Himalayan winters, giving them a way to financial support themselves, when unable to travel. The range includes:
- Hazelnut crunch
- Almond salted caramel
- Chocolate orange
- Chocolate salted caramel
- Fine de champagne
- Around midnight espresso
- Rhubarb & vanilla fool
- Salted caramel mocha
- Toffee strudel
- Rum sozzled sultana
- Stem ginger
- Cherry cognac
- Cherry bakewell
- Raspberry & ginger gin
chocolate loglets
- Yuletide spice
- Cherry cognac
- Ginger toffee
- Chocolate orange
- Hazelnut crunch
- Salted caramel mocha
