Tuan & Tuantoo are featured in Metro as a gift that keeps on giving for a charitable Christmas

We were delighted to see that our chocolate orangutans were featured in Metro today December 4th as a gift that keeps on giving in their review of charitable Christmas gifts. We were the only chocolate item featured and are very proud of the work we have done to date with SOS, the Sumatran Orangutan Society.
We also collaborated with another local (although slightly larger) Dorset business, Lush, for this project. They very kindly created a special version of their orangutan soap moulds for us. They periodically produce 14,600 orangutan soaps (as that is how many orangutans are left in Sumatra), to raise money to buy back land destroyed by illegal palm oil plantations & we are now helping to reforest the land.

Since launch in December 2019, we have funded the planting of 2,500 cocoa tree seedlings in Sumatra through the sale of our chocolate orangutans, Tuan & Tuantoo (our dark chocolate, vegan-friendly version). We donate £3.50 from the sale of each one & that enables the SOS team on the ground in Sumatra to plant 2 seedlings!

The cocoa tree planting programme is part of a wider reforestation initiative to help both reforest the habitat of the orangutans, but also to give the local farmers another crop to expand their income streams. By growing a diverse range of crops, it will help encourage them stop chopping down virgin rainforest to grow palm as a monoculture for the oil.

So far, the trees that we have funded will be planted, alongside taller shade trees, in a 2 hectare plot. The land is being prepared at the moment and further plots are being planted in 2020, so this is a long term project for us!

It takes c5 years for a cocoa tree to mature and fruit pods that can be harvested for their precious beans inside which once fermented & dried, can be processed to make chocolate!
Not only will these cocoa trees provide a new income stream for the farmers, but they will provide a fruity treat for the orangutans as they love breaking cocoa pods open to enjoy the sweet white fruit surrounding each cocoa bean inside!

By the way, the box that our orangutans are presented in is actually made of 70% recycled consumer plastic & is 100% recyclable.

Click here to view our Tuan & Tuantoo orangutans

Click here to find out more about the work of SOS