Ethics

During his training at Maison Lenôtre, Marc received some advice from Gaston Lenôtre himself: 'Rigour, Rigour, Rigour... in everything you do'.

And that is Marc's guiding principle which he applies to all areas of the business from sourcing the finest cocoa and best ingredients, through to the selection of suppliers, partners, clients and employees, and of course the production of his chocolates.

We continuously strive for the highest quality and strongly believe that you can't have the highest quality without humanity. Our formula is very simple: TLC - Quality in Taste, Quality in Life for producers (that's the humanity part) and quality in Cultivation.

We recognise that this is a continuous process and as such we are constantly challenging and working in partnership with our suppliers and taking action when needed. For example we have never sourced any cocoa from the Ivory Coast due to well documented child labour issues and in 2009 completely stopped buying any cocoa and cocoa derivatives which could be traced back to Ghana. To avoid any ambiguity we have decided to blend our own chocolate from single estate plantation to country origin level.

It is our utmost priority to ensure that none of our products have been handled unfairly, forcefully or illegally throughout the supply chain and are particularly committed to help eradicate child labour in the production of cocoa. As such we are supporting a worthy project in Vietnam and will be continuously highlighting the issues through public awareness campaigns and further project work. On a wider scale, we have also been strong supporters of the NSPCC and the Princess Margarita Trust - two important charities focused on the welfare of children - for a number of years.

Although chocolate is traded as a commodity, we don't treat it that way. Chocolate is our passion and it is our mission to bring you some of the best and most interesting chocolate from around the world provided it 100% conforms with our strict TLC formula.

We go to great lengths to get to know, continuously question and work in close partnership with our suppliers. We seek as much information about each supplier as we possibly can and invest time and resources to build long-lasting sustainable relationships. This is hard work but by working closely with our suppliers, we are able to immediately address any issues that arise and ensure the best quality at all times.

We endeavour to continuously address and highlight important issues. We do not see ourselves as just a business aiming to sell chocolate - we are a conscientious and ethical company, passionate about chocolate, who strongly believe that humanity is the essence of quality and quality is our obsession.

A few hard fact  facts

• Our cocoa butter is from Ecuador, Madagascar and the Dominican Republic
• The sugar we use for our Caramel Chocolates is British Beet sugar
• We do not use any palm oil or any other substitutes to our chocolate
• Our delicious cream is supplied to us from Hampshire and a Jersey Herd Farm in Cornwall
• Where possible we source our ingredients from British small holders or pick and grow them ourselves
• We do not add additional sugar to our chocolates but sweeten with our own special blend of traceable honey - a natural inverted sugar
• We do not add any synthetic or artificial flavourings to our chocolates
• We compost all our fruit and herbs bits that we disregard, all our ground coffee and tea
• We sloped using plastic based tape in favour of kraft tape
• We use enzymes to clean with to reduce chemical usage

Our People

We hire great people who can do a great job, be a great team player, be a fantastic communicator and help us as a business be better. From day 1 Marc has applied a pure meritocratic policy regardless. We are so proud of our former team members who have further developed once it was time to fly our chocolate nest! As alumnae we stay close to them and offer the support they need to continue to excel and deliver to their maximal potential and we hope they bring to their own teams a little bit of Demarquette too!
 

What can I recycle?

As promised from 2020 we will no longer use single use plastic and where possible no plastic at all. We are working hard to ensure that we have the right presentation baring the in mind the impact we may have. We have reduced our plastic by over 90% in the past few months and an assure you that all our boxes are fully recyclable and compostable. We may be small, but we are bold in our actions, and hope that you will continue to support us.

We urge you to recycle all our packaging when possible, as a team we have collected a few ideas on how we recycle our packaging.

Truffle trays 

1. perfect to freeze fruit in juice for the Summer
2. perfect to keep trinkets and minor stationary sorted! Paper clips, staples, pins..
3. great to plant seedlings, preparing for a bumper summer of flowers!

Cardboard boxes

1. compost
2. if intact can be used to shelter small plants in a cold frame
3. to sort out your festive decorations! Or any other seasonal but small items

Our Chocolate Boxes

1. perfect to store jewellery
2. great way to keep your stamps safe!
3. keep recipe cards or kitchen notes

Bubble wrap

1. fantastic insulator for plants
2. the green can be composted
3. to keep precious fragile items in boxes safe

Paperwork 

1. compost
2. to make fire briquettes
3. forget me not notes!

Keep up to date with our latest news by following our Blog and our Facebook page.