All About Us

Set up by husband & wife team Andy & Claire Burnet, we are proud to have been making fine fresh handmade chocolates since December 2002 on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. We believe that we were one of the first, if not the first UK chocolate maker, to lead the way in making truly fresh chocolates, using locally sourced fresh cream blended with fine origin chocolate, seasonal, natural flavours and no additives or preservatives.

We are also proud of being ethical chocolate makers as, just as we care about the taste of our finished chocolates, we also care about the bigger picture - about the provenance of our ingredients, whether local or global, and about the people who produce them.

In our former lives, we both worked for large companies in marketing and finance roles, so setting up Chococo was a complete change of direction for us both and we made the leap because we love fine quality chocolate, fresh food and Purbeck, this beautiful part of Dorset. We also wanted to bring up our family here and now have 2 children, Lily & Max.

You can buy our fresh chocolates direct from us at our shop & chocolate café at “Cocoa Central” in the centre of Swanage, or via our nationwide mail order service. You also can find a selection of some of our range in premium retailers, including John Lewis, Liberty & Harvey Nichols, and delicatessens around the UK. We also offer a corporate & weddings gifts service.

We now make our chocolates in-house at “The Chocolate Shed” in nearby Wareham, as we grew out of our original chocolate kitchen here at Cocoa Central, but this space is now our chocolate workshop space and bakery for our café.

We also published our first book in 2011 with Ryland Peters & Small. Containing 65 recipes, many inspired by our range of award-winning chocolates, with colour photos of each recipe by leading food photographer Jonathan Gregson, it is called the Chococo chocolate cookbook and is available in the UK with editions in the USA & Denmark!

Constantly innovating, we create not only a wide selection of fresh truffles & chocolates but also edible decorated chocolate boxes, clusters, slabs & bars studded with fruits, nuts & spices, themed novelties that tie into our seaside location, such as chocolate fish & chips or Jurassic Coast dinosaurs, chocolate fridge cakes and seasonal gifts for Christmas & Easter.

We employ a great team of local people, which increases significantly at peak times such as Christmas, and are very proud to be a Purbeck food business, working with other local & regional food producers who are as passionate about their cows, bees and hedgerows as we are about our chocolates. We are also very proud to have won so many regional and national awards since 2003, for both our chocolates and our business ethos.

What are we passionate about?

Provenance – We only work with origin chocolate made with the finest cocoa beans, we use local Dorset & South West produce, including the fresh cream for our ganaches, as much as possible and where we can't go local, we try to source ethically produced ingredients.

Freshness – Our fresh Dorset cream truffles & chocolates are best eaten as soon as possible as they are a fresh product, but they will keep for up to 2 weeks - if you can manage to hold back for that long…

Purity – We believe quite simply that pure food tastes better - so we don't put any preservatives into our chocolates, so that you can discover the joy of tasting purity.

	Our Purity Promise: you will never find any such added ingredients as sorbitol, neutral alcohol or any other substances commonly used in the industry to extend shelf life (although they will try to tell you that those ingredients are there for other reasons), in our fresh cream filled chocolates. We strongly believe that these preservatives adulterate the purity, taste & mouth feel experience of eating a truly pure fresh cream chocolate or truffle… accept nothing less!

Where are we?

“Cocoa Central”, our shop & chocolate cafe is in the Commercial Road Lanes in the heart of Swanage, a traditional seaside town in an area of the county known as the Isle of Purbeck, on Dorset's Jurassic Coast.

You are welcome to watch us in action in our original chocolate kitchen opposite, baking for our chocolate café or take part in one of our chocolate workshops.

Keep an eye on our website news & Facebook page for dates on chocolate making workshops & tasting events in our chocolate kitchen at Cocoa Central.

It is also available for hire for groups, birthday parties and corporate team building events.

Please contact info@chococo.co.uk for corporate event hire details.

Our shop & chocolate café are open Monday to Saturday year round and also on most Sundays from early Summer to the Autumn.

Click here for directions.