Contrary to what some "free from" brands would like you to believe, ALL chocolate is naturally gluten-free and so you have to add an ingredient containing gluten for it to become an issue! Most of our loose fresh chocolates, our range of bars, clusters, slabs or novelties made in our chocolate kitchen in Holton Heath do not contain gluten in their recipes.
However, be aware that we do use chocolate covered malt balls in some seasonal items which definitely contain gluten. If an item definitely contains gluten, it is flagged on their packaging, product page & on their ingredients list on their page on the website.
We also work with an oat m!lk chocolate produced in Colombia which is 100% plant-based and is also gluten-free as it is made with gluten-free oat powder.
As we make all our items in our chocolate kitchen, we do flag on all ingredients lists & on packaging that they are made in the same room, so might contain traces.
Yes, our chocolates are suitable for vegetarians - we have even checked any alcohols that we use to ensure that they are vegetarian.
The only exception is our 'Full of Beans' bars as the naturally coloured mini chocolate beans on these bars contain shellac as a glazing agent, which is much debated as to whether it can be classified as suitable for vegetarians.
Yes. We work with a variety of different nuts including hazelnuts, pecans, cashews, almonds, pistachios and brazils but not peanuts. As our chocolate kitchen is one room, we cannot guarantee that any of our chocolates, even if they do not overtly contain nuts, are 100% nut-free.
No, we cannot give any 100% guarantee of any of our non-nut based chocolates being nut-free as stated above, we make all our chocolates in one room and, as a result, any of our chocolates may contain nut traces.
Yes, some of our fresh chocolates & truffles have alcohol in them and are clearly marked as such in their product descriptions in the relevant selection box details & on the menu that comes with each box. Unlike lots of chocolate makers who use neutral alcohol as a preservative without advertising the fact, we do not do so. So unless it says so, our chocolates do not contain alcohol. We do offer "Alcohol-free" selection boxes if you want to select a box with definitely no alcoholic flavours inside. None of our bars, slabs, clusters, biscuit cakes, honeycombe items etc contains any alcohol.
Yes, we make a wide selection of dark & oat m!lk chocolate items which are suitable for vegans as these chocolates are plant-based & naturally vegan-friendly. This includes our full range of oat m!lk & dark chocolate studded slabs, assorted dark chocolate treats in cartons, novelties including ducks, turtles & orangutans, dipped orange segments, boxes of vegan-friendly or ginger chocolates, 70-100% hot chocolate flakes & origin bars...you get the idea that there is a lot! There is a vegan-friendly category in our online shop to make it really easy to find all our vegan-friendly chocolates.
Whilst all our dark & oat m!lk chocolate vegan-friendly items comply with vegan requirements in terms of their recipes, please be aware that we cannot guarantee that they are 100% free from any traces of dairy etc as we do make all our chocolates in one room.
Yes, we do make a wide selection of items in dark & oat m!lk chocolate that do not contain any dairy and are therefore also suitable for vegans.
To confirm dark chocolate is a naturally vegan product as it is just a blend of cocoa beans & sugar!
However, we cannot guarantee that these products will be 100% dairy-free as we make everything in one room & do work with milk and other dairy products, so we describe them as being 'vegan-friendly'.
This is because it is a milk chocolate plant-based equivalent product in that it is made with gluten-free dried oat powder instead of dried whole milk powder. It is an attempt by the powers that be to show that it is made with a different type of milk to cows milk. We quite like the ! as it does make it stand out & hopefully make the point! We love the oat m!lk product as it tastes just like a classic milk chocolate but without the dairy or nuts or gluten. There are quite a few milk alternatives on the market made with cashew, hazelnut or almond, which, while they address the dairy issue, don't help if someone wants to avoid nuts as well!
We only work with natural colours and minerals, all of which are vegan-friendly. We do not work with titanium dioxide (E171) or any of the 6 'azo' colours which if used, have to come with a warning that they might make children hyperactive (yes really!). We also don't work with any non-azo colours which are not vegetarian or vegan-friendly.
As a result, we are v restricted in the colours we use and that is why you will notice that none of our chocolates are as brightly or as strongly coloured as some chocolatiers achieve as we can only work with natural fruit & vegetable extracts.
The edible shimmers are made of minerals (iron oxides) and are dusted on with paintbrushes so the amounts used are tiny.
No - the only chocolates we work with that contains egg are any containing fruit curds. These curds are supplied to us by a local preserves company as finished items.
No, we do not work with any "diabetic" chocolate as to be honest, we dont believe in it! We only work with fine quality dark chocolate which means low sugar levels of 30-25% and less. Such high quality dark chocolate also has a low glycaemic index. We understand that there is much debate about the quality & role of "diabetic" foods within the diabetic community & that they may not actually be that good for diabetics. We advise any diabetic who is unsure of what to eat with regards to chocolate to consult their GP/practice nurse & have a look at the Diabetes UK website where you will find a joint statement from the Food Standards Agency & Diabetes UK about "diabetic foods". In summary, the statement says that: "There is no single food that people with diabetes must not eat & they do not have to cut out sugar totally. However, like everybody, people with diabetes are recommended to eat only small amounts of food that are high in sugar &/or high in fat."
All our milk, oat m!lk and dark chocolate grades from Ecuador, Madagascar, Colombia & Cameroon are soya-free (they either contain sunflower lecithin or no lecithin at all). The only exception is the Colombia origin white chocolate and the 58% Colombia dark chocolate chips we use in our bakery to make our chocolate chip scones.
No. We work with "couverture" chocolate as do most artisan chocolatiers. It comes to us in large blocks or buttons for us to then temper & create our beautiful chocolates. Making couverture from beans is a different skill base & one that also requires a lot of space & machinery that we do not have. We liken ourselves to being like bakers rather than millers - bakers work with flour to make their artisan breads, we work with couverture that has been processed for us, to make all our chocolates.
We also strongly believe in working with fine couverture chocolate that is direct trade ie: it is processed in its country of origin - from the cocoa beans to the chocolate. This means working with fresher beans, local sugar (& milk if milk chocolate) & importantly, local labour which keeps more of the value chain in the local economy and adds significantly more revenue to the local economy than exporting commodity dried cocoa beans, even fairtrade beans, to be processed in the West. For more information about all the chocolates we work with, see our Our Chocolates page.
We have had cardboard grids in our selection boxes ever since we launched the business for 2 reasons - to ensure the chocolates travel safely as they cannot bash into each other in transit & also as they are cardboard! We refused to use the plastic trays you see in so many other chocolate selection boxes back in 2002 and we will never use them! If you find it difficult to extract the chocolates, just remove the grid dividers and you will find it very easy to get the chocolates out - we give this suggestion on the welcome card & menu that is inside each box.
Our online selection boxes are made up to templates from our main seasonal menu of approximately 35 different chocolates which are all handmade using the freshest local & ethically sourced ingredients on a cyclical basis. By definition, we cannot fit all the flavours in every box, given our largest box contains 25 chocolates. This main menu is also used in our chocolate shops where all the chocolates we are currently making are displayed in our chocolate cabinets for our shop customers to choose their preferred selection to put in their box.
Online, we have compiled various different box selections with smaller menus to cover the most popular options, as we cannot manage the complexity of every online customer choosing the specific contents for their box. If you want to choose the contents of your selection, you can always visit one of our chocolate houses and see what they have in store that day. Our boxed selections online cover the most requested options: our Chococo selection boxes containing the widest selection we are currently able to offer, our award-winners box which contains x2 of each of our key award-winners for sharing and so on. Substitution of one flavour for another is sometimes necessary in the themed boxes, especially as we make in small batches and not all ingredients are always available.
Our Chococo Gelato is all made in-house in our dedicated gelato making room at Holton Heath. We started making our own gelato in 2019 as we wanted to offer unique flavours based on & using the same ingredients as many of our award-winning chocolates. Our gelato maestros make small batches & we ship them to our chocolate houses in our own freezer van, so the flavours you are enjoying are still very fresh. Several of our most popular flavours are now available in take home tubs from our chocolate houses.
Most of our items are sent by Royal Mail as we find postmen very efficient at delivering to domestic addresses. We offer a variety of postal options but all are tracked so that you can follow the progress of your delivery and have confirmation of when it is delivered. We offer a 3-5 day standard tracked service (we can't guarantee this timeline, particularly if circumstances beyond our control - such as postal strikes - affect delivery providers), a first-class tracked service (usually next day but not a guaranteed next day service) and, for the same price, a first-class tracked future day delivery service in which you choose your preferred future weekday delivery date from the calendar (however, this is also not a guaranteed delivery date). Please note that we cannot offer a preferred delivery date service on our standard service - they will leave us as soon as we can pack & despatch the items.
We are not currently able to offer a guaranteed next day delivery service.
If the recipient is not in to receive the item, the postman will leave a card & the item can be collected from the local delivery depot. We may use a courier if you place a very large order with us that weighs over 6kg in total.
Yes. If you click on the 1st Class 'future day' delivery option when going through the checkout, a calendar will pop up below and you can enter the preferred future delivery date that you would like. Please be aware that this is a 1st Class service and so it is NOT a guaranteed date as we currently do not offer guaranteed delivery. This preferred day service applies to all our items on our website.
Parcels sent from our Chococo HQ may be delivered during your postie's Saturday round. We are not able to offer Sunday deliveries.
Sadly no longer due to Brexit. We used to send our chocolates to selected European countries but, as things currently stand, this is no longer an option for us. We are monitoring the situation and will revert to European deliveries if it becomes easier to do so at any point in the future. We are currently still sending parcels to Northern Ireland, but will keep this under review. We do not send to the USA, Canada or the rest of the world due to the amount of time our perishable items are likely to spend in transit.
All items are sent by tracked delivery so depending on the postman may require a signature on delivery. If no one is in, a card will be left by the postman and the item can either be collected from the local delivery office or a re-delivery can be arranged. Royal Mail offers an online re-delivery service so that you do not have to call them first, just arrange it via their website at royalmail.com. Please note that if no one is available to accept delivery, or if goods become unsuitable as a result of non-delivery, we cannot accept liability.
No! With our service, you can place your order today for us to send out fresh selection boxes to you or direct to your intended recipient for a date in the future. At peak times (especially Christmas) we strongly advise that you pre-order early for delivery of freshly made chocolates later, to ensure that your order will arrive in time. Any fresh seasonal items (eg: chocolate biscuit cake wreaths) will have a future first delivery date that we apply anyway, so you can pre-order months beforehand & we won't despatch the items until we have made them! You can of course choose a date closer to Christmas than the first one we allow.
However, if you leave it to order at the last minute, we may not be able to fulfil your request, as our volume will already be committed & there is a limit to how much we can make & pack when the final posting deadline is getting very close. When ordering online, if you click on the 'future day' delivery option as you go through the checkout process, a calendar will pop up below and you can enter the preferred future delivery date you would like. Please be aware that this is not a guaranteed date though, as we currently cannot offer guaranteed delivery, but it will be close to that date if not exactly.
Yes, you can add a free gift message - just click on the words ADD A FREE GIFT MESSAGE under the payment section when going through the checkout and a box will pop up for you to add your message. You will need to save your message by clicking the SAVE button and this will be added, exactly as you have written it, to a gift card by our despatch team and placed on top of the item(s) in the postal box, so it will be the first thing that the recipient sees.
No, we don't as we fully appreciate that many items are sent as gifts, so we do not include anything that shows the price of the item. The only extra elements we will include would be the gift message, if you ask us to include one, and sometimes a postcard with information about us and perhaps an offer.
Yes, it is. We took advice from our business mentors, who have vast experience of managing online businesses, who recommended that our boxes should be branded to show pride in our brand. This is in line with many other premium businesses, especially in the food and drink sector, who have branded boxes.
Yes this functionality is available with this website.
Please see our separate subscription FAQs.
The only products on our website which have a short shelf life are our fresh selection boxes. These products are clearly stated as having a short shelf life of max 3 weeks from receipt on their product pages - we explain this in terms of both the words & pictorial icons. We also offer chocolate biscuit cakes with a relatively short shelf life. Everything else has a shelf life of several months, so you do not have to wait to order for delivery close to say Easter or Christmas for items such as Easter eggs, chocolate baubles, studded slabs, bars and novelties etc.
We advise that all our chocolate items are stored somewhere cool, dry and away from direct sunlight, heat sources or strong odours. That means not near radiators, windows or strong cheese folks! By the way, be wary of storing chocolates in your garage if you use that for other food or drink items, as contrary to popular belief, mice actually prefer chocolate to cheese, as some of our customers have discovered to their cost over the years.
Our selection boxes containing fresh chocolates with a short shelf life of a few weeks are happiest at c14-16 degrees (an old fashioned pantry would be perfect for them), but if the only cool place in your house is the fridge, they can be stored there (but away from that cheese or any other strong flavours you may have in there!). Just like cheese though, the flavours are best if the chocolates are brought back to room temperature before being eaten.
Yes! We recommend that you wrap the box in clingfilm, or some kind of wrapping, to keep moisture down & to defrost the box slowly. The chocolates will lose their shine, and some may go a bit 'tacky' to touch but they will taste fine. Co-founder Claire's mum has been the chief tester for freezing Chococo chocolates as she spent many years living in the tropics and is a big fan of freezing things to extend shelf lives!
The pages for our Chocolate Houses on this website give details of their locations, opening times & other useful information.
Yes. Please check the relevant chocolate house page for their latest opening times.
Not currently.
We can offer this but please be aware that our chocolate houses are not really geared up for this and may not answer their phone if they are busy. You can call each chocolate house direct to place and pay for an order over the phone. The team member will confirm the best collection date & time with you. Each chocolate house phone number is listed on their page in the Chocolate House section on this website.
Gift vouchers expire 2 years after purchase.
Yes. We offer chocolate tasting events at all our Chocolate Houses plus more interactive workshops in Exeter, Horsham & Swanage. Our old chocolate kitchen opposite our original Chocolate House in Swanage is a great space for us to offer chocolate making workshops for adults & children's birthday parties. You can book the space for a private party or book into workshops which take place in most holidays.
The best way to keep up to date with workshops & their availability in holiday periods is to join our mailing list or follow our social media pages, where we publish all our events news.
We only allow special assistance dogs into our chocolate houses. There are a number of reasons why we don't otherwise allow access to dogs. Firstly, fine chocolate is highly poisonous to dogs and our chocolate houses are full of chocolate. If any chocolate inadvertently ends up on the floor, or in a place that is accessible to dogs coming into the premises, then there is a risk that a dog may eat it and become ill or worse. We are also a family-friendly business and take account of the fact that not all children coming into our chocolate houses will be happy to be around dogs; we want to make sure that we provide a safe environment for them.
We offer the full range of our chocolates at our chocolate houses in Swanage, Winchester, Exeter, Horsham, Dulwich and Westfield Stratford City, and on our website. Historically, we have also supplied a number of delicatessens & independent shops in Dorset at key times of year, including Christmas & Easter, with a selection of pre-packed gifts such as Christmas trees, Easter eggs, bars & nut-based selection boxes. Nationally we supply various premiu retailers & other independent stores around the country. However, they usually will only take a very small selection from what we offer & do not stock any of our fresh cream chocolates & truffles. If you want to buy those, it's best to either visit one of our Chocolate Houses or buy direct from us online.
We are sorry but we do not have any shop facilities at our chocolate kitchen in Holton Heath where we make all our chocolates, as it is not geared up for the general public. If you want to buy the widest selection of our chocolates locally, your best option is to buy them from our original Chocolate House in Swanage or order online. Further afield, you can visit our Chocolate Houses on Winchester High St, on Gandy St in Exeter, the Carfax in Horsham, Croxted Road in West Dulwich or at Westfield Stratford City to buy our full range.
We do not offer tours as our production space in Holton Heath is not geared up for visitors.
No we cannot offer this service. Please either visit a Chocolate House in person to buy what is available at the time or order online.
Gift vouchers expire 2 years after purchase.
Yes. We can offer chocolate themed events at our Chocolate Houses. Our old chocolate kitchen opposite our original Chocolate House in Swanage is a great space for us to offer chocolate making workshops for adults & children's birthday parties. You can book the space for a private party or book into workshops which take place in most holidays.
The best way to keep up to date with workshops & their availability in holiday periods is to join our mailing list or follow our social media pages, where we publish all our events news.
Apart from Dulwich, we only allow special assistance dogs into our Chocolate Houses. There are a number of reasons why we don't otherwise allow access to dogs. Firstly, fine chocolate is highly poisonous to dogs and our chocolate houses are full of chocolate. If any chocolate inadvertently ends up on the floor, or in a place that is accessible to dogs coming into the premises, then there is a risk that a dog may eat it and become ill or worse. We are also a family-friendly business and take account of the fact that not all children coming into our chocolate houses will be happy to be around dogs; we want to make sure that we provide a safe environment for them.