Love chocolate, love the planet

Doing business sustainably and ethically is really important to us. We love chocolate and the planet, and want both to stick around!

We take extra care to source our chocolate from equally planet and people-loving companies.

Unfortunately there’s a large amount of slavery in cacao farming, so working with smaller, quality chocolate makers can help avoid this type of chocolate.

Our main chocolate supplier is Pump Street Chocolate, who work with a carefully chosen set of cacao plantations and co-operatives to source their cacao. Some of the cacao is certified organic, while others are produced to organic standards. The cocoa butter added to the chocolate is also organic.

The 100% cocoa dark chocolate and vegan mylk chocolate we use is made by tree-to-bar chocolate maker Chocolat Madagascar. Chocolat Madagascar creates its chocolate sustainably from cacao grown in the Madagascan rainforests. It also makes the actual chocolate in Madagascar, meaning more of the money stays within the country to support and develop local communities.

Wherever possible, any additional ingredients used in Calm Cocoa are organic and sustainable.

We’ve also thought long and hard about how we package our hot chocolate.

We try to minimise the packaging as much as possible, while also making sure it retains the quality by the time it reaches your mug and provides all the necessary (and legal!) information about Calm Cocoa.

All our packaging is home compostable, recyclable or reusable. Our glass container is even made from recycled glass and the lid is 100% biodegradable cork. We recommend reusing our jars, boxes and twine if you can.

What else?

We use a manual hand-powered grater to flake our chocolate to minimise our electricity use when making Calm Cocoa (apart from that involved in heat sealing our packets, sterilising jars, baking and heating chocolate for our other chocolatey treats).

Our electricity is sourced from a 100% renewable power provider, and we are working on making our home and kitchen more sustainable through investigating other renewables options.

And no Calm Cocoa goes to waste! We make our hot chocolate in small batches to avoid wastage. Anything leftover is happily enjoyed in the Calm Cocoa kitchen.

We also try to minimise general waste. Unfortunately some of our ingredients come packaged in single use plastic, which is still common for dry foods, but we buy bulk to reduce packaging and our key supplier is also working on more sustainable packaging for their wholesale products.

The running of our business does also mean car journeys are necessary for travelling to and from markets and some events, but we use a small hybrid car for most travel that can’t be done by public transport.

We’re definitely not perfect, but are trying our best and are always open to suggestions on how we could improve.