For anyone who’s new to the addictive Bare Bones Chocolate, can you introduce us to your artisan company?

We are micro-batch chocolate makers based in Glasgow, Scotland who sell single-origin handmade chocolate bars and hot chocolate across the UK and Ireland. Our micro-batch identity means that we make our bean-to-bar chocolate in small batches so that we’re able to extract the best flavour from our ingredients. We do everything ourselves from roasting the beans, the first stage of the process, to the finished, packaged product and there's very few of us doing that in the UK.

You’ve just moved into a new warehouse, congratulations on your expansion! As a growing company, how has your original business plan varied from the beginning to now?

Cam is fantastic at this side of the business and although we’re always on track, it's surprising sometimes how long things take to happen. One bar of our chocolate can take up to two weeks to create and I never really appreciated this when I was enjoying it on an evening before Bare Bones. We’re so grateful that people have loved the chocolate and that’s something that we’ll never get over: people really love it and want to rebuy it! We also realised that we couldn’t do everything ourselves (although we do most things ourselves) so we hired our first staff member, Holly, and realised that you can do so much more with another pair of hands!

We love that you’re so dedicated to producing the best quality chocolate and my gosh, it tastes fantastic. What is the most important part of the process to create the bean-to-bar label?

A huge part of the flavour happens at the origin: the cacao is processed and fermented by the farmers so our job is to keep those incredible flavours. It’s an incredible process that we love, we roast our beans with the shell on so that the flavour can be intensified during the roasting process, just like it would when you roast peanuts or oats to give them extra flavour.  We’re able to get the most flavour out of the beans that you could never imagine! Flavours like strawberry, honey and pineapple all come from the beans we buy from across the world. After this we remove the shell in a process called winnowing which reveals the cocoa nib, what’s left becomes chocolate. The nibs are put into a stone grinder that turns and heats for up to 3 days, sometimes even longer, to make the nibs smooth and ready to become fully formed chocolate bars. We try to keep the processing to a minimum to carry through the incredible work that the farmers have done in creating the beans.

Your packaging is made from recycled sources and is 100% fully recyclable or compostable, Amazing! What does sustainability mean to you and your business and how do you see it impacting the food industry going forward?

Sustainability is just as important as the flavour is to us. We felt a real responsibility that we didn’t want to start a business that wasn’t socially responsible and environmentally responsible so even from the very beginning, we pay the farmers around three times the fair-trade market rate that ensures that they’re looked after and can carry on producing incredible crops year on year. For us, it would feel strange putting so much care into that side of it and then parcelling it in foil or plastic knowing the economic and environmental costs.

I think people are definitely more aware of where their food comes from, how it was made and who made it. I think that smaller companies start by being sustainable and responsible which ultimately puts pressure on the bigger companies because the demand is there and consumers are realising that the way we create some foods isn’t right and certainly isn’t sustainable. I think the food and drinks industry is on the right path and it’s realising that we all have to be: we all need to take responsibility now. Small businesses had the opportunity to shine through a lockdown and highlighted the power that consumers have with their money. By shopping at a small retailer, you can be a big part of something and you can help to support a family, a business and a dream.