With a passion for all things eco-friendly, Hollychocs aims to leave behind the tiniest of carbon footprints. I continually improve our systems to eliminate waste. Think of those little pieces of honeycomb that are too small to enrobe in chocolate… well, they go into their honeycomb tiffin. When allergens are
worked with, e.g. hazelnut, the chocolate with allergen contact is made into a specific tiffin – the hazelnut tiffin is my favourite. Chocolates made in a trial or visually imperfect go into bags for sale at a discount in The Beanery and are always popular with my local customers.
I scale recipes up and down to reduce waste and apply mass balances across my recipes to calculate the potential water activity. By controlling this, I naturally create chocolates with a longer life and do not need the use of artificial additives.
Wrap, pack, repeat...ethically-sourced packaging is so important to me and it therefore runs through my brand. This past year I have been working with a local printer and graphic designer to create wraps for our chocolate boxes with the aim of discontinuing the use of un-recyclable ribbon. We've worked really hard to
keep the luxurious feel without the ribbon through the use of recyclable and biodegradable wraps and I am currently working towards bespoke packaging that removes the recyclable plastic from our boxes completely.
All of my other shop items such as Chocolate Pearls, Tasting Thins and Honeycomb have transitioned into biodegradable bags with a recyclable wrap too. I am really proud of this movement and have enjoyed working with the local printer in Devizes to bring this to life.
Sustainably supporting others...sadly, cocoa often crops up in the media with stories of child slavery on cocoa farms directly linking to the price paid to the cocoa farming communities. My chocolate business is I now supporting 3
cocoa farming families. My milk chocolate is from Farmer Bertil Akesson. His estate is in the Sambriano Valley in Madagascar. My white chocolate is from Samuel von Ruttes farm on the Guantupi River in Ecuador. My dark chocolate is from Lucy in Makira, an eastern island in the Solomon Islands. Lucy exclusively employs women to run her cocoa farm. And in-fact, due to the money she
raises selling her superb chocolate, she has been able to send 2 of her daughters off to university in Australia! How phenomenal is that!
Thank you Wiltshire Life - looking forward to attending the awards ceremony in March.