A new chocolate company which uses fully recyclable packaging has recently launched in Bristol and is now stocked in several shops in the city. Joel Manuvelpillai spent years working for Cadbury before co-founding his own kitchen to make his own chocolate with a more environmentally-friendly model.
The new chocolate company Goüter uses leftover bread that gets cut up and toasted to mix into crunchy clusters of chocolate. He claims that his chocolate is the first in the UK to have 'zero carbon' packaging.
Mr Manuvelpillai said: “I spent 15 years working for Cadburys. But I had enough. I quit because they weren’t doing enough for the environment. The things that big corporations do are not really straightforward, it’s more about making profit."
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Cadbury and other brands came under fire in 2021 after an investigation linked them with the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, after dairy ingredients were traced back to cows that were fed on soya beans that were grown on recently deforested land. In response to the investigation, Cadbury's owner Mondelez said at the time that it was working with dairy farmers to ensuring they are sourcing 100 per cent deforestation free feed by 2023.
The company has spoken of its green ambitions before including the rolling out of its Cocoa Life project, which teaches cocoa farmers to grow crops in a way that looks after the environment. It states that Cadbury Dairy Milk cocoa is sustainably sourced through Cocoa Life and by 2025, it is aiming to say the same for all Cadbury products.
However, Mr Manuvelpillai feels there is a lot more that big companies could be doing to reduce their carbon footprint. He said: “I got fed up with seeing so much waste but no one talks about it.
"I’m the first one, according to my supplier, to use this packaging, which is 100 per cent paper. I don’t even use any plastic moulds to make my products. Everything that I make is done with the environment in mind - from the ingredients, to the packaging, to the supply chain.
“I’m helping to reduce food waste, I’m the first chocolate company in the UK to be part of the Upcycled Food Association. I work with a bread manufacturer and use their end bits and the chocolate is produced in the UK.
"The cocoa beans come from West Africa, we use a programme called Cocoa Horizons and then it’s processed in the UK. The milk chocolate is produced using British milk and manufactured in Oxford.”
Cocoa Horizons state on their website that 88 per cent of the cocoa they produce is free from deforestation and that 43 per cent of the farmers in their programme are above the poverty line.
Followed by beef, lamb and cheese, chocolate is considered to be one of the most carbon intensive food products. The reason for this is not only due to the milk used to produce chocolate but the cocoa beans which have been attributed to up to 70 per cent of emissions because of deforestation.
Goüter can currently be purchased in The Food Shop and Future Leap on Gloucester Road and The Green Melon in St Pauls. Mr Manuvelpillai is currently approaching additional independent shops in Bristol where he hopes he can expand the business.
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