Our business operates for the planet & people in a positive creative way.

Our logo may be a diamond but at Baron Hasselhoff's we love circles > circular economies & food cycles. It is at the heart of our business practice to be ethical & sustainable. Our considerations are for the growing, making and trading of our products and the people involved in each step.

Soil

Our cacao beans are sourced directly from farm cooperatives and social enterprise. Organic and wild, no pesticides. We are proud to use direct trade. We have visited two of our cacao producers personally & our friends at Weave Cacao are leading a craft chocolate coverture revolution in the Pacific. We're really proud to have a strong connection with where our cacao comes from, we want where our cacao is grown to be a familiar part of the process. Good chocolate starts with good quality cacao so we're passionate about connecting our business with farms that share our values of environmentalism and keeping things natural. 

Pictured is Clayton and Erin, owners of Baron Hasselhoff's, in the plantations of Tabasco region, Mexico, where we import some of our cacao from. 

 

Waste

We have a nice big compost out the back of our shop and kitchen space in Berhampore, so all of our kitchen waste is composted. That includes the compostable baking paper we use, any food waste and the coffee grounds from our shop coffee machine.

Any chocolate mistakes go to Kaibosh or our 'Cost of Living' seconds basket. We're really proud to be big supporters of Kaibosh, we think they're amazing for the work they do in the community and we love being able to donate our chocolate to them. We save offcuts from out Swinging Sultan truffles throughout the year, freeze them and then make a special batch of 'Charity Balls' especially for Kaibosh.

Our 'Cost of Living' basket is our seconds bin, which throughout the week gets filled up with all the chocolates that aren't quite perfect enough to sell full price. We don't like to see things go to waste, so this is our effort to make sure our wastage is as low as possible. We sell these seconds for half price, and they usually go super fast! 

There is no waste in the growing process of cacao.

The only biproduct we get from processing our cacao is the husks we accumulate during the winnowing process (separating the husk from the nib). We usually end up with quite a lot of husk, however luckily it's a fantastic for gardening. So our husks go to the local community orchard to mulch the trees. 

Our packaging is the biggest consideration here so we make sure to use only biodegradable, reusable and recyclable materials. We are totally plastic free! We package our truffles, caramels and Smuggle Puffs in cellophane bags. Cellophane is a plant derived product, and is compostable. So we encourage anyone who gets our boxes of chocolates and has a compost to cut the bags into small pieces and pop them in your compost. Any bags that end up wasted at out shop end up in our backyard compost, as pictured. 

All of our carboard packaging is recyclable. The paper our bars are wrapped in is recyclable or compostable. 

We source our FSC certified water activated tape from No Issue.

Energy

Our biggest energy use is our manufacturing premises. Apart from small energy saving measures our best asset here is our energy company Toast, which is a not for profit that supports locals under energy hardship.

Transport

We donate to TREES THAT COUNT to offset our carbon emissions & we are embarking on a carbon counting journey to nail down the footprint of every bar we make.

One of the many considerations with using Weave Cacao for our couverture products (caramels and truffles) is that they are produced as close as we can get cacao, in the pacific region.

Our direct trade cacao used in our bean to bar products (premium craft chocolate bars) is from Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands.

Our only origin vice ('cause its far from us) is South America. But there is something in there about honouring the birth place of cacao and the people who farm there.

Processing

We use all natural ingredients. Organic where possible. We're passionate about keeping things as unprocessed as we can.

Climate Change

This is our biggest area of concern. We are currently looking into the exact calculation of each chocolate bar made for more exact carbon calculations to be accredited through Ekos. We offset our carbon with the crimson project and Trees that count and donate to 350.org

People

We love our Barons whanau, we have a close knit team and we really care about the people who work for us. We pay living wage to our team. We also pay a premium for our cacao because it supports communities. We put a lot of heart into our business, products and community.

Community

We regularly support our local schools and Kaibosh with donations.