CHOCOLATE, MADE FROM BEAN TO BAR IN MANCHESTER Dormouse Chocolates was born to expand on the background of our professional chocolate maker, Isobel. Fully trained in the process of bean to bar chocolate making and the fascinating history behind it while working for a luxury chocolate brand, this passion is now being used to create a line of bars and and other treats. In May 2015 we became the first Bean to Bar producer in Manchester and are proud to have gone on to bring home multiple awards. BUY GOOD BEANS, MAKE GOOD CHOCOLATE This is our ongoing sourcing policy, and ‘statement of intent’ if you will, which we will constantly strive to update. Our approach to sourcing beans is based on three main principles – flavour, transparency and people. We believe that each of these factors are important to bring you good chocolate. Sourcing is not just a static line, it’s something we will always seek to improve on. We know we’re not perfect, and we don’t claim to be. What we will promise is to always do our best, and if we fall short of that to do everything we can to do better. We hope you will join us on that journey. FLAVOUR Good chocolate starts with good beans. We seek out the unusual and aren’t afraid to try new things. For a chocolate to make it through to our main range of bars it has to have an exceptional taste that is significantly different to what we already offer. We aren’t afraid to stop and try again if something isn’t working, if we wouldn’t eat it then we won’t ask you to either. TRANSPARENCY We’re aware of our limitations as a small company and know that as much as we would like to be able to purchase every bean we use directly, that just isn’t currently possible. What we do guarantee is that we will spend our money wisely and only work with bean suppliers that we trust to be transparent. Manchester bean to bar With Dejan, sampling chocolate with visitors to Chocoa, Amsterdam This means we will trade directly wherever possible, for example with Kablon Farms in The Philippines. Some producers do not trade directly but can point us to their preferred suppliers, as with the Anamalai beans. If we cannot trade directly we will source our beans through companies that publish transparency reports, such as Uncommon Cacao. We won’t quibble on price, we will pay what beans are worth, and we won’t buy from just anyone. We aim to apply the same standard to all our ingredients, using Billingtons Sugar for all of our chocolate and organic milk and cocoa butter. PEOPLE Farmers are the most important people in our supply chain, without them we couldn’t do what we do. We want to be able to tell you about the people that grow the beans we use, and actively seek out opportunities to meet them.