The Raw Chocolate Company started with looking at our own diets and a concern for those of our children. Many ‘healthy’ snacks and alternatives just aren’t much fun at all, so we started creating fruit, nut and seed balls, coated in chocolate. We didn’t do any sort of formal market research (and still don’t). We made some chocolates and sold them at small school fairs. Everyone loved what we were doing so we decided that there might be something in it!
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We started with a few domestic appliances in the kitchen. Linus Gorpe, founder of the Raw Chocolate Company, read books, took himself off on training courses and experimented over and over and over. He sought out people to give him advice and the company has grown sustainably ever since. Soon demand for the chocolate was so high that he needed to convert a whole floor of his house and employ a number of people to assist with production. Then came the first factory about five years ago and we are now onto our second factory, which we have just doubled in size.
Our products are pure; they are organic, Fairtrade and vegan certified. They are also raw – to retain as many nutrients as possible. Further, we minimise our environmental impact wherever possible, our factory is solar and wind powered. Lastly, we love what we do and we only do something if it is worth doing and with love and we think this shines through our products.
We have three product ranges: Raw Chocolate Bars, Raw Chocolate Berries and Supreme Foods – individual ingredients for people to make their own products.
The Raw Chocolate Bars come in six flavours, all in two sizes. The 22g bar retails for £0.99 and the 44g bar for £1.99, both gram for gram the best value bars in our sector. The best selling of the bars is Vanoffe – it is a name we made up which describes the flavour, vanilla-toffee. Second to this is the pure, Pitch Dark bar, which at 72% cacao and with only cacao, cacao butter and coconut palm sugar on its ingredients list is a great chocolate hit!
We have three Raw Chocolate Berries in avariety of sizes – Mulberries, Goji Berries and Raisins – all organic. The most popular product is the Raw Chocolate Mulberries. This now come in four formats – the 32g Snack Pack Size, 100g and 200g re-sealable pouches, and a 150g seasonal Gift Tin.
Our Supreme Foods range allows people to make their own creations, and revolve around being able to make their own chocolate. Unsurprisingly then, the most popular products in this range are the Raw Cacao Powder and Raw Cacao Nibs.