Dietary & Allergens

Are your chocolates gluten-free?

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 or any of our range of bars, clusters, slabs or novelties made in our chocolate kitchen in Holton Heath do not contain gluten in their recipes.
In August 2022 we started working 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. 
However we do work with an oat cream (which the manufacturers Oatly advise is not definitely gluten-free) to make our vegan-friendly caramels & occasionally work with beer (which will be flagged in the chocolate box information), and biscuits to make chocolate biscuit cakes. 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. If an item definitely contains gluten, it is flagged on their product page & on their ingredients list on their page on the website.

Are your chocolates suitable for vegetarians?

Yes, our chocolates are suitable for vegetarians - we have even checked any alcohols that we use to ensure that they are vegetarian.

Do your chocolates contain nuts?

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.

Can you guarantee that your non-nut based chocolates 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. 

Do any of your chocolates contain alcohol?

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.

Do you make any chocolates suitable for vegans?

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, cocoa dusted cocoa beans, cocoa nibs & coffee beans...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.

Do you make any dairy-free chocolates?

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. However, we cannot guarantee that they will be 100% dairy-free as we make everything in one room & do work with milk and other dairy products.

Why is your Oat M!lk chocolate spelt with an !?

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!

What colourings do you use and are they all suitable for vegetarians & vegans?

We only work with natural colours and minerals, all of which are vegan-friendly. We certainly do not work with any of the 6 'azo' colours which if used, have to come with a warning that they might make children hyperactive (yes really!) and 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.

Do you work with raw egg in your chocolate kitchen?

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. Our bakery which makes everything for our chocolate house cafes & our postal brownies, is in a separate room to our chocolate kitchen, so there is no cooking involving eggs in our chocolate room!

Do you work with diabetic chocolate?

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. [PLACEHOLDER: UK-specific advice references Diabetes UK & the UK Food Standards Agency — replace with US-appropriate guidance, e.g. consult your doctor or the American Diabetes Association.]

Does your chocolate contain soya?

All our milk, oat m!lk and dark chocolate grades from Venezuela, Ecuador, Madagascar & Colombia are soya-free (they either contain sunflower lecithin or no lecithin at all). The only exception is the 67% Madagascar dark chocolate chips we use in our bakery to make our chocolate biscuit cakes, brownies and chocolate chip scones & cookies. Our white & gold chocolates do however contain a small amount of soya lecithin.

Our Chocolate

Do you make your chocolate from cocoa beans?

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 - they 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 Raisetrade 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 adds significantly more 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 Chocolates page.

Why do your selection boxes have grids inside and how do I access the chocolates easily?

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.

Why are there more chocolates shown on the menu than are in my selection box?

Our online selection boxes are made up to templates from our main seasonal menu of approximately 40 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. [PLACEHOLDER: original continues with UK chocolate-shop/cabinet references and "visit one of our 6 chocolate houses" — adapt to US retail setup.] Substitutions 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.

Shipping & Delivery

Which delivery services do you use to send the chocolates?

[PLACEHOLDER: original describes UK Royal Mail tracked services (3-5 day standard, first-class, future-day). Replace with US carrier and service details — e.g. USPS/UPS, standard vs expedited, tracking.]

Can I choose a future delivery date for anything on your website?

[PLACEHOLDER: original references UK 1st Class 'future day' checkout option. Replace with US checkout delivery-date option if offered.]

Do you deliver on Saturdays & Sundays?

[PLACEHOLDER: original references UK postie Saturday rounds / no Sunday delivery. Replace with US carrier weekend delivery details.]

Do you ship in hot weather?

[PLACEHOLDER: add US hot-weather shipping policy — chocolate is heat-sensitive, expedited shipping recommended in warm months, not responsible for melting after successful delivery.]

I used to be able to send items to multiple different delivery addresses in the same order, why not now?

We removed this function as it was causing quite a few issues. Our site is much more sophisticated in that if you are logged in, it remembers all your card & billing address details, so it is actually super quick to create a new order with a different delivery address and gift message each time. This makes it much simpler for both you to use and us to manage at this end. Your card details are held by a secure third party payment provider which helps speed things up for you.

Do you send chocolates overseas?

[PLACEHOLDER: original is UK-specific (Brexit, no US/Canada shipping). Replace with US shipping scope — e.g. we currently ship within the United States.]

What happens if no one is in to receive the chocolates?

[PLACEHOLDER: original references UK Royal Mail tracked delivery, cards left, re-delivery via royalmail.com. Replace with US carrier equivalent (USPS/UPS redelivery process).]

Gifts & Orders

Can I include a gift message with the item I have ordered?

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, to a gift card by our despatch team and placed on top of the item(s) in the postal box so will be the first thing that the recipient sees.

Do you include a delivery note showing the price of the item(s) in the box?

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.

Is the postal box branded as being from Chococo?

Yes, it is now as we took advice from our business mentors, who have vast experience of managing online businesses, who recommended in 2020 that our boxes should be branded to show pride in our brand and this is in line with many other premium businesses, especially in the food and drink sector, who have branded boxes.

Storage & Shelf Life

Do all your products on your website have a short shelf life or is it just some items like selection boxes?

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 brownies with very short shelf lives & 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.

If your chocolate selection boxes are fresh should I wait to order closer to the time that I want them?

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. [PLACEHOLDER: original references UK 'future day' checkout calendar — adapt to US delivery-date option.]

How do I store my chocolates once they have been delivered?

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.

Can I freeze my selection box to save the chocolates to eat at a later date than the 'Use By' label says?

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!