J.Cocoa

J.Cocoa was born from a curiosity and a question: 'why don't chocolate companies, even large well-known ones, actually make their own chocolate from the cocoa beans themselves?' There are loads of chocolatiers, all who buy in ready-made chocolate, melt it down, flavour, and mould it, but, there is still only a handful of us in the UK who make it entirely from scratch, and one of those is based here at the foot of the south downs in Hassocks.

From the outset the goal was to create great tasting chocolate, and real chocolate, making it from scratch from bean to bar, a rare concept here in the UK for which I have been fortunate enough to win a collection of international awards.

I start by ethically trading and sourcing the finest cacao beans from around the world. Each cacao variety has its own unique flavour profiles, naturally occurring in the fruit from different growing countries, regions, soil and climates. The cacao beans are carefully crafted from scratch by myself with individual production profiles, creating delicious chocolates with their own distinctive and exceptional flavours.

It is a very complex time-consuming process, taking 10-15 days to carefully hand sort, roast, crack, grade, winnow, stone-grind, refine and conch, into chocolate all before melting, tempering and packaging into my minimal waste, fully compostable boxes ready for you to enjoy. Changing one small aspect within production will yield a completely different end product, which at times has been a nightmare. But I do it because I love it, and I want others to enjoy what I make.

Sustainability has always been at the forefront of J.Cocoa, making a specific 'minimal waste for maximum taste' pledge to protect the environment, implementing measures throughout sourcing and production, ensuring we only leave big taste impressions on our planet, after all, this is the only planet with chocolate on it!