Our Madagascar chocolate will be back in the Autumn
Due to high demand and intermittent supply, our moreish Madagascar chocolate stocks are pretty much out now and the next shipment of chocolate from Chocolaterie Robert in Madagascar will not be arriving into the UK until the Autumn.
This will include more of our:
• Madagascar 70% dark for our 2 Star Great Taste award-winning hot chocolate flakes which are available in both a tin in store, online and within our Chocolate Houses and for our ‘Good vibes’ dark chocolate bar
• Madagascar 65% milk chocolate for our Mega Milk chocolate bar
Madagascar 85% dark chocolate for our ‘All night long’ dark chocolate bar
• Madagascar 100% dark chocolate for our ‘A shot in the dark’ dark chocolate bar
We still have a few dark bars available, but once they are gone, and you will need to wait a little longer for your next fix!
Due to the current cocoa price shock and extra shipping costs the Madagascar team are facing (thanks to the Houthi rebels preventing international shipping using the Suez Canal), the price of our Madagascar range will have to increase in the Auutmn as their prices have rocketed. However, we still want to continue to stock this delicious range as part of our chocolate offering to support Chocolaterie Robert.
We are proud to work with Chocolaterie Robert, a Madagascan family-owned chocolate company established in 1940 making all their Raisetrade chocolate from tree to bar on the island. Bursting with red berry fruit notes, gentle acidity and a wonderfully smooth mouthfeel, we work with their grand cru de sambirano 70% dark chocolate for ganaches (the centres of many of our chocolates that are a blend of cream and dark chocolate), bars, award-winning gelato (2 Star Gold Great Taste Award 2020) and hot chocolate flakes, available in tins to make your drink at home & as one of the hot chocolate options in our cafes in our Chocolate Houses (also a 2 Star Gold Great Taste 2021 winner!).
We also love their fabulous low sugar/no sugar 65% 'Mega Milk', 85% 'Mega Dark' & 100% 'Totally Dark' chocolate which we use to make very special bars. All Chocolaterie Robert chocolate is also soya-free.
Co-founder Claire visited Madagascar in May 2016 and visited both the Chocolaterie Robert factory in Antananarivo & also their cocoa plantations in the Sambirano valley in the North West of the island, so we have a direct relationship with the team there.
The way fine cocoa is grown in Madagascar (& other countries growing fine quality beans) is quite different to West Africa. It is not a subsistence crop grown by large numbers of farmers with tiny plots of land. In Sambirano, there are fewer, bigger cocoa farms and Claire met cocoa farmers & plantation workers (one unique local benefit they get is a paddy field each to grow their own rice), watched the local children going to school rather than working on the farms, and has confidence in the slave-free ethics and sustainability of Chocolaterie Robert. Another benefit of working with Robert is that the supply chain is extremely short - the deliveries are sent from the Robert team in Madagascar by sea to a specialist importers in Sussex who pop the chocolate in one of their vans to deliver it to us! We were also one of the first UK chocolatiers to work with their 65% Mega Milk chocolate. The Robert team also make special blocks of the 70% just for us to flake into our hot chocolate.
In the meantime, be sure to try our other dark chocolates such as our signature award-winning Ecuador 72% dark chocolate available in hot chocolate format, bars and many of our novelty chocolate products, Uganda 80% hot chocolate and drops or Ecuador 100% hot chocolate also available in tins or our chocolate houses.