There's a lot of talk about palm oil at the moment and it's totally OK to not really know why. First, it's important to say that you won't find palm oil in our products. Anywhere. Ever. 

Palm oil is a very versatile and reasonably priced ingredient which has all sorts of nifty uses in food and drink, biofuels and cosmetics. Other than being particularly high in saturated fats, it's not even particularly bad for you. HOWEVER, the production and farming of palm for palm oil can be hugely damaging to ecosystems around the world, from displacing animal habitats and causing deforestation to issues with worker exploitation and child labour.

It's EVERYWHERE in the mainstream chocolate industry and whilst we can't change that, we can show the big boys how it could and should be done. That's why you won't find palm oil in our products. Anywhere. Ever.

Calling ingredients natural can be a tricky one, I mean most things start off as natural right? Here's how we see it - we use as few ingredients as possible and the best possible. Nothing ending in -oxide or -dextrine and nothing your grandma wouldn't recognise.

If you want to know more about any of the ingredients we use, where they come from or why they're in our products, get in touch, we can bore you for hours on it!

We want to be a company that leaves behind more than it takes. That's why we became a B Corp - a business committed to being a force for good. We've got a lot to say on the ethical nature of our chocolate and too much to fit in this wee section, so have a read through our Better Ethics blog post above.

It's simple. We're committed to making products with less sugar than the market leaders. No compromise on taste, no compromise on quality.

We work with a couple of factories to make all our delicious products. They're brilliant but they handle different things so unfortunately that means you'll have to refer to each individual product for allergens advice. However as here is an overview if you can't wait to find out!

Our pouch products are made in a factory that  handles milk, gluten, nuts, peanuts and sesame.

Our bars may contain  traces of soya, gluten and nuts.

And out Nuttercups may contain traces of milk and other nuts.

We are Vegan Society Certified and one thing we can say for sure is that if it says 'may contain' these are just precautionary. All our factories have the highest level of health and safety and our products fall well within the allowance of traces. High fives all round.

There's too much take, take, take in this world. We want to leave something positive. So we refuse to use any palm oil in our products and, from source to product, only work with people and companies that we know are championing equitable pay all along the supply chain, good working conditions, and respect for the environment.

The truth is it's tricky to grow cocoa in Kent. And a chocolate company's carbon footprint is always going to be an issue. But we do everything in our power to keep our supply chain as streamlined as possible and, where we can, we go straight from source to the UK with no funny business in between. Now that's something not every chocolate company can say!

Every magic cocoa bean that goes into our chocolates is a good egg. Or should we say good bean.

Our cocoa comes predominately from Colombia, and we've seen first hand the love, care and craft that goes in to growing the best quality beans, with some of the best flavour profiles around. With this cocoa, we buy directly from the supplier, rather than through a middle man, and as a result, more money is invested in Colombia. This means a more stable income and more stable livelihoods for the Colombian growers and their communities, which in turn allows them to build longer term social projects and provide education for farmers - no matter who they grow cocoa for.

We also source from Fair Trade certified cocoa growers, who make sure the farmers are treated fairly and properly.

We're passionate about the sustainability of packaging. It's something we all use every day and right now, we're not as sustainable as we'd like to be.

We're proud to say that our bars are made with recyclable paper packaging on the outside, but our goal is for the rest of the D&D product family to join the recyclable gang within the next year. We figure if we aim for perfection, whilst we might not reach it, at least we'll be doing our bit to make the world better. Keep an eye out for the recyclable symbol that should be popping up on more and more of our packs.

We never compromise on the quality of our ingredients, from using cocoa certified by the ICCO as being in the top 8% of the world's finest, to making our very own nut butter. This means you can be sure that what you're tucking in to is only the very best. Oh yes.