Ethical Chocolate

Finding ethically sourced chocolate

This guide covers a range of issues linked to sustainability and the cocoa supply chain including child labour on cocoa farms, fair trade, deforestation, pesticide use, and cocoa sourcing policies. We also look at issues related to other ingredients often found in chocolate, namely palm oil and dairy milk. 

Chocolate brands in this guide

We have covered the major mega chocolate producers, smaller, alternative companies making vegan and organic chocolate, and five tree-to-bar (also known as value-added-at-source) companies making chocolate bars in cocoa-growing countries so that more wealth stays in the origin country.

Cadbury is by far the most popular chocolate brand in the UK, made by the world’s biggest chocolate company, Mondelēz.

Ferrero, Lindt, Mars, Mondelēz and Nestlé dominate the UK chocolate market, accounting for just over half of chocolate sold in the UK. These are the same five companies that fall into the “poor” section of the scoretable, all scoring under 25/100 overall.

We've include all these 'big five' companies, along with some of their acquired brands like Hotel Chocolate (owned by Mars), Green & Blacks (owned by Cadbury / Mondelēz), Thorntons (owned by Ferrero), plus brands like Ritter Sport and Guylian.

The guide also includes several widely available smaller brands like Booja Booja, Divine, Montezuma's, Tony's Chocolonely, and Oxfam, along with brands like Moo Free, Ombar and Vego and less well-known brands like Fairafric, MonChoco and Paccari. 

We primarily looked at solid bars of chocolate but many of the companies also make chocolate snack bars and boxes of chocolates. 

New to this guide is a section on hot chocolate, cocoa and chocolate spread.

Chocolate’s colonial origins

While over 70% of the world’s cocoa is now grown in West Africa, primarily in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, it actually originated in South America. Here the plant was used to make a bitter drink (cacao) as well as being considered a sacred plant used in rituals. European colonisers brought it to Europe, added sugar and profited from the increasing popularity of this new luxury drink.

Europeans later turned to Africa as a continent where they could exploit the warm climate and cheap labour to grow cocoa. Soon after, the creation of the solid form of chocolate in Britain in the mid-1800s served to significantly increase demand for the cocoa grown in West Africa and surrounding areas.

While many of the explicit structures of colonialism have been dismantled, companies based in Europe and the US continue to profit from a highly exploitative cocoa trade whereby former colonies feed the western world’s desire for chocolate. It is estimated the cocoa farmers receive between 6% and 11% of the chocolate industry’s $100 billion revenue. And child labour is still a significant issue.

Few farmers can afford chocolate and many have never tasted it, with over half of Côte d'Ivoire’s cocoa farmers living below the global poverty line. Their poverty is linked to the prices paid for cocoa beans by the multinational buyers who make our chocolate bars. Their countries taste virtually none of the industry’s profits either.

After cocoa beans are harvested, the majority are exported to international companies for the most profitable production stages: processing, packaging, and retail.

Cocoa farmers and child labour

Why is child labor still a problem in cocoa farming? 

Oxfam reports that up to 90% of cocoa farmers in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire don't earn a living income, forcing them to rely on child labor because they can't afford adult workers. This often involves what the International Labour Organization (ILO) defines as "the worst forms of child labour," practices that harm children's health, safety, or morals.

Approximately 2.1 million children work on cocoa farms in these regions, facing significant risks such as sustaining scars from machetes, neck damage from heavy loads, and injuries from sharp tools.

Companies are doing more but 25 years after the first promises to eliminate child labour, it’s still happening on a massive scale – while the biggest companies reap profits.

You’ve almost definitely eaten chocolate made using child labour: in 2020, four in ten cocoa-growing households in Côte d'Ivoire were estimated to use child labour, and six in ten in Ghana.

Power to local chocolate producers

Looking to empower cocoa-growing communities? Choose value-added-at-source (VAS) chocolate! 

VAS chocolate is crafted in the same country where the cocoa beans originate, ensuring more profits remain local. By choosing VAS chocolate, you directly support micro-companies, local job creation, and the survival of budding chocolatiers in cocoa-growing countries. 

Plus, a shorter supply chain makes it easier to trace ingredients and uphold workers’ rights. Explore the five VAS brands featured in our guide (see table below) and make a difference with your purchase!

VAS chocolate is more expensive because production costs are higher. Local companies may face issues including lack of refrigeration and difficulty sourcing four of the five main ingredients in chocolate: milk, sugar, vanilla, and lecithin (a stabiliser), which, as small companies, they can’t bulk buy.

Plus, of course, as a UK consumer, you need to pay shipping costs to buy a bar.

* Based on ordering 10 bars for UK delivery.

Sustainable Chocolate

Cocoa sourcing

Our evaluation of companies' cocoa sourcing policies includes all cocoa used, not just in chocolate bars. 

High scores are awarded for: 

• Value-Added-at-Source (VAS) models: Chocolate made in the cocoa-growing country, ensuring profits stay local.
• Fairtrade and Fair for Life certifications: Meeting high ethical standards, including direct trade with farmers. Lower scores are given for Rainforest Alliance or partial steps toward fair cocoa sourcing.

Companies could only receive full marks (100) if they were combining both VAS and fair trade models.

Brands that scored 80-100 for their cocoa sourcing: 

• '57 Chocolate (VAS, Ghana)
• Chocolat Madagascar (VAS, Madagascar)
• Cocoa Loco
• Divine
• Fairafric (VAS, Ghana)
• Guylian
• H!P/Love Cocoa
• Monchoco (VAS, Côte d’Ivoire)
• Ombar
• Paccari (VAS, Ecuador and Peru)
• Tony’s Chocolonely
• Vego

Brands that scored 0-20 for cocoa sourcing:

• Booja Booja
• Cadbury/Green & Black’s
• Ferrero Rocher
• Lindt
• Mars/Galaxy
• Montezuma’s
• Nestlé
• Seed & Bean

The remaining brands in the guide scored between 30 and 60 (Hotel Chocolat, Moo Free, Plamil, and Ritter Sport).

Deforestation for cocoa trees

Did you know that chocolate production is a major cause of deforestation? Between 2001 and 2023, Ghana lost 24% of its tree coverage, and Côte d’Ivoire lost 26%, with the latter having lost 90% of its rainforest since 1960. 

This destruction is driven by the need for land to grow cocoa trees. Deforestation occurs because farmers seek short-term yield boosts after exhausting their soil, can’t earn enough from existing land, and face climate change impacts like unpredictable rainfall. This all means that chocolate often comes with significant impacts on both climate and biodiversity.

Deforestation occurs because:

• Farmers move into the forest to get a short-term yield boost after business-as-usual farming practices have exhausted the soil.
• Farmers can’t earn enough to live on from existing land and so take over more land in order to open up more land for cocoa cultivation.
• Climate change further exacerbates the situation, for example by causing rainfall to be too high or too low, which can lead to falling productivity.

The key driver of deforestation is big businesses’ demand for massive amounts of cocoa at extremely low prices. Farmers need more money to survive and many have little alternative but to deplete the land with intensive and unsustainable harvesting practices, and to deforest more of it.

EU deforestation law

By December 30, 2025, all cocoa entering the EU must be deforestation-free (not grown on land deforested after 2020) and traceable to geolocated plots of land where they originated.

Companies such as Nestlé and Tony’s Chocolonely support the law, whilst Mondelēz is urging for a delay of another year. “The EUDR is a critical step in minimising deforestation linked to cocoa production and fostering fundamental industry change,” Tony’s said.

Let’s see if it comes into force and what effect it has.

Is agroforestry the answer?

Agroforestry is the practice of growing crops amongst forest or other types of trees. Cocoa trees evolved to grow in the shade under a rainforest canopy but pressure for short term yields forces farmers to switch to full-sun monoculture. 

Agroforestry is cropping up in the sustainability reports of some of the largest multinational food companies in this guide. On the whole these efforts have not managed to significantly reverse the decades of deforestation.

Might Earth said, “Most striking has been the failure of agroforestry efforts.” Despite numerous tree-distribution campaigns in Côte d'Ivoire, the survival rate of distributed trees is less than 2%. The NGO said this was due to a "failure to consult local communities in designing agroforestry projects, distributing trees that never got planted, or died because they weren’t maintained and then were not replaced.”

Agroecology is more than a bunch of agricultural techniques, it is a social and political movement. True agroecological systems also have significant focus on fairness, decentralised power structures, and building food systems based on the culture and identity of the local communities. It is difficult to see how large companies operating profiting from an extractive capitalist food system can ever fulfil these elements. 

Pesticide use in growing cocoa

Cocoa trees can be prone to disease, especially when grown as a monocrop.

This means that pesticide use is rife in cocoa cultivation. This can contaminate soils and waterways, harming wildlife and acting as another threat to biodiversity. 

The significant use of pesticides is even more worrying due to the prevalence of child labour on cocoa farms and the lack of access many farmers have to proper protective equipment. These chemicals can be just as harmful to humans as to other forms of wildlife.

Organic chocolate

A number of the chocolate brands in this guide are certified organic. This means they are grown without the heavy use of harmful chemical inputs. Organic farming generally results in improved biodiversity not just because of the lack of pesticides but because farmers will rely on intercropping with other plant varieties and boosting trees’ natural defences through creating healthy soils.

The following brands were completely organic:

• Booja Booja
• Cocoa Loco
• Fairafric
• MonChoco
• Paccari
• Seed & Bean

Brands with some organic options:

• Chocolat Madagascar, Green & Blacks, Montezuma’s, and Plamil
• ‘57 Chocolate used organic cocoa but it wasn’t clear if the whole product was organic. 

Chocolate and climate impacts

Most of chocolate’s greenhouse gas emissions come from producing cocoa (due to associated deforestation) and dairy milk.

The cocoa in a bar of chocolate might even have a higher carbon footprint than the dairy. A 2019 University of Edinburgh study estimated that a 40g bar of milk chocolate has a carbon footprint of 200g, while its dark chocolate equivalent has one of 300g (because of the larger amount of cocoa).

While this is only one study and was dated 2019, it at least suggests that buying vegan “milk” chocolate might be the better option in terms of climate impact as it doesn’t contain dairy but also doesn't have the higher cocoa content of darker chocolates.

On an individual company level, climate ratings were relatively poor with the best scores often coming from companies that did not use any dairy.

We look for companies to have identified and reduced their main carbon impacts and also give marks if companies report their emissions and have a reduction target in line with international agreements. Companies also get marks if their whole business has a significant focus on low-carbon products.

Fairafric decided to stop making milk chocolate for the European market specifically to improve its carbon footprint.

Climate rating scoring

In this guide, only 8 of 24 companies scored above 60/100 for climate impact: Fairafric, MonChoco, Moo Free, Ombar, Oxfam, Paccari, Plamil, and Vego. 

Conversely, 9 companies received zero points: '57 Chocolate, Cocoa Loco, Divine, Guylian, Mondelez (Cadbury and Green & Black's), Montezuma's, and Seed & Bean.

Fair trade certification schemes

What are the different types of chocolate certifications? Several certification schemes exist for chocolate, focusing on fair trade, organic production, and palm oil sourcing. 

For fair trade, cocoa producers can choose from global schemes like Fairtrade International and Rainforest Alliance, as well as company-specific in-house schemes. We will review how beneficial each of these are. 

Note: "fair trade" (two words) is the general concept, while "Fairtrade" (one word, capital F) is a specific certification scheme.

Rainforest Alliance vs Fairtrade

How do Fairtrade International and Rainforest Alliance compare? 

Fairtrade International: Has a minimum price ($2.68/kilo Ghana, $2.80/kilo Côte d’Ivoire and $3.50/kilo elsewhere) to protect farmers from market falls, and offers premiums ($240-$300/tonne for organic cocoa).

Rainforest Alliance: Offers no minimum price but provides a $70/tonne 'Sustainability Differential'.

You can usually spot which are the weaker certifications by looking at which ones are most popular with large brands.

In 2023, 51% of the world’s cocoa was certified by Rainforest Alliance. On the other hand, less than 5% of the world’s cocoa is certified as Fairtrade.

The Rainforest Alliance’s lack of a minimum price to protect farmers from a fluctuating market price and the significantly lower premiums highlight why it might be the certification of choice for brands prioritising their profit margin.

We have a separate feature article about the Rainforest Alliance.

Which brands sell Fairtrade chocolate?

All their chocolate is Fairtrade: 

• Cocoa Loco
• Divine
• Guylian
• Ombar
• Oxfam
• Tony’s Chocolonely
• Vego.

Some chocolate is Fairtrade certified

• Mars (i.e. Maltesers and Mars Bars in the UK)
• Seed & Bean
• Green & Blacks organic range.

Do supermarket use fair trade chocolate?

Co-op became the first retailer to source all its cocoa on Fairtrade terms in May 2017.

The table shows their policies for their own brand chocolate and cocoa products.

When we last rated supermarkets in August 2024, (EC210), Co-op and Waitrose were our recommended brands for their overall score.

* Sustainability program of Barry Callebaut, cocoa trader and maker of own-brand chocolate. It is not as stringent as Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade. 
** Sustainability program of Cargill, cocoa trader and maker of own-brand chocolate.  It is not as stringent as Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade.

Company-own fair trade certifications

Many large chocolate companies have their own sustainability schemes (e.g., Mondelēz's Cocoa Life, Nestlé's Cocoa Plan, Mars' Cocoa for Generations). 

However, these programs often cover only a portion of their cocoa suppliers, and lack meaningful public standards, relying on general statements and policy guidelines.

They talk about helping farmers to improve their income by diversification and finding new sources of income (getting other jobs) or improving their yield through agroforestry.

According to a report by the Corporate Accountability Lab in 2023: “Within these nice-sounding phrases, there are few real commitments. Nowhere is Mondelēz committing to making changes, only to ‘working’ with farmers.”

Additionally, sustainability programmes do not have publicly available standards. In fact, it’s unclear whether there are any standards. While certification schemes’ standards are often weak and compliance is spotty at best, standards still set a baseline for expected behaviour. Without such standards, sustainability programmes stand on very little. 

The report also said, “... the lack of oversight allows companies to make merely cosmetic changes, without revamping their supply chains and addressing the core issue in the cocoa supply chain – that companies pay too little for it.”

“They are willing to do everything but pay a fair price for cocoa,” says Antonie Fountain, managing director of the Netherlands-based Voice of Organisations in Cocoa (VOICE Network), a global network of NGOs and trade unions working on sustainability in cocoa.

A 2023 Oxfam report says: “robust, public data on the income effects of companies’ interventions are virtually non-existent … The price premiums paid by companies are too low to make a significant difference in farmers’ incomes … Without more pronounced and ambitious efforts by companies, a living income will remain an illusion for most farmers across companies’ cocoa supply chains.”

Is your fair trade chocolate actually made of fair trade cocoa beans?

Both Fairtrade International and Rainforest Alliance allow companies to certify products using what’s known as “mass balance” purchasing. This is when, for example, a big chocolate company buys 30 tonnes of Fairtrade certified cocoa and then mixes it with 70 tonnes of uncertified cocoa. It’s then entitled to label 30% of its chocolate bars as “Fairtrade”.

Some people don’t like this model because it means that a lot of the cocoa in, for example, the Fairtrade Maltesers in your hand might not have been grown in Fairtrade conditions. But at the end of the day, if you’ve still spent extra money to ensure a cocoa farmer gets slightly better pay, does it really matter if it’s the one who harvested your chocolate specifically, or the chocolate in someone else’s bar which isn’t labelled Fairtrade?

Organic certification does not use mass balance as it is certifying that the actual ingredients used are organic.

Animal products in chocolate

We rated all companies on their approach to animal rights and welfare, looking at both the brand and the wider company group. The only way to score 100 points in this category was to be completely vegan – not just vegan chocolate but across the whole company group. 

Some companies could also score higher marks if they had measures to prevent the worst forms of animal welfare issues when sourcing animal products, for example, companies which only used certified organic dairy milk (see which companies were organic certified above).

Palm oil in chocolate

The global food system’s addiction to palm oil has led to devastating impacts such as deforestation, land grabbing and a range of human and workers’ rights abuses, particularly in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.

Palm oil may be used in bars of chocolate to replace cocoa butter because it is cheaper, provides a smooth texture and enhances shelf life.

It is most likely to turn up in mass produced chocolate bars. Bestselling brands Cadbury Dairy Milk and Galaxy both contain palm oil, for example.

It also often ends up on the ingredients list due to all the extra things we like to add into our chocolates and chocolate bars such as biscuits or caramel.

We rated all companies on their approach to palm oil, with points being awarded to companies sourcing RSPO-certified palm, particularly if a significant amount is segregated (not mixed with non-certified palm oil) or identity preserved (traceable back to the plantation). Top marks were also given to companies that were palm oil free. As with all our ratings, points were taken off when we found significant criticisms.

Palm oil free chocolate companies: ’57 Chocolate, Booja Booja, Chocolat Madagascar, Cocoa Loco, Fairafric, MonChoco, Moo Free, Ombar, Paccari, Plamil, Seed & Bean, Vego.

Palm oil free chocolate brands: Divine, Guylian, Love Cocoa, Montezuma, and Tony’s Chocolonely were palm oil free brands but had palm oil use (or lack of policies regarding palm oil despite being in high-risk sectors) in their wider group.

H!P Chocolate, Love Cocoa’s vegan brand, was palm oil free apart from its products containing cookies and pretzels.

Hotel Chocolat was also palm oil free, apart from a biscuit included in its “dipping adventure” product. However, it was owned by Mars Inc. which uses significant amounts of palm oil across its product range.

Boycotts of chocolate brands

Companies that are subject to boycotts lose points in our Company Ethos column.

Nestlé

Nestlé has been the subject of boycott calls around the world since the 1970s for its marketing of baby milk formula. It is accused of "contributing to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants" through its aggressive marketing practices, which campaigners allege promote baby milk formula as a superior option to breastfeeding.

Nestlé is also subject to the West Papuan boycott for use of palm oil (see Mondelēz below).

With over 80 brands in the UK alone, there's a high chance you could be buying Nestlé brands without even realising it. 

Nestlé's brands

• Baby food/milk: Cerelac, SMA, Nido.
• Cereals: Cheerios, Cookie Crisp, Curiously Cinnamon, Golden Grahams, Golden Nuggets, Lion, Nesquik Cereal, Shredded Wheat, Shreddies.
• Coffee and drinks: Milo, Nescafé, Nespresso, Nesquik.
• Dairy: Carnation, Coffee-Mate, Munch Bunch, Rachel’s Dairy, Ski (40% owned).
• Food: Herta, Maggi, Tivall.
• Ice cream (mostly owned by Froneri, a joint venture between Nestlé and PAI Partners): Nuii, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Rowntree’s, Oreo, Kelly’s of Cornwall, Fab, Smarties, Nobbly Bobbly, Del Monte, Movenpick, Perfectly Baked.
• Purina pet food: Adventuros, Bakers, Bonio, Felix, GoCat, Gourmet, Lily’s Kitchen, Winalot.
• Water: Acqua Panna, Buxton, Nestlé Pure Life, Perrier, Princes Gate, San Pellegrino, Vittel.
• L’Oreal: Nestlé also owns 23% of L’Oréal, meaning it has financial links with such brands as: CeraVe, Garnier, Maybelline, NYX, Essie, Biotherm, Lancôme, Kiehl’s.

Mondelēz

More than 90 West Papuan tribes, political organisations, and religious groups are calling for a boycott of companies that profit from ongoing ecocide in the world’s third-largest rainforest, until West Papua has self-determination. The campaign has started with a boycott of products using expropriated West Papuan palm oil including Oreo and Ritz which are both owned by Mondelēz International.

Ferrero

The Witness website called on people to boycott Ferrero as it owns a subsidiary in Israel. It’s not, however, an official target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Chocolate companies with multiple brands

Because some of the global chocolate companies make many different brands of chocolate we haven't included all of these brands in the scoretable. Their scores would be the same as the overall company score. 

Cadbury (owned by Mondelēz): Crunchie, Bournville, Twirl, Wispa, Freddo, Creme Egg, Double Decker, Boost, Picnic, Flake, Curly Wurly, Mini eggs, Fingers, Time Out, Brunch, Fry’s, Heroes, Roses, Milk Tray, Green & Black.

Mondelēz: Cote D’Or, Daim, Marabou, Milka, Toblerone, Terry’s, Suchard

Nestlé: Kit Kat, Aero, Crunch, Lion bar, Milkybar, Munchies, Rolo, Smarties, Toffee Crisp, Walnut Whip, Yorkie, After Eight, Black Magic, Dairy Box, Matchmakers, Quality Street

Mars: Maltesers, Mars, Bounty, M&Ms, Milky Way, Revels, Snickers, Twix, Topic, Celebrations

Who owns Hotel Chocolate?

In 2024, Mars completed the purchase of UK chain Hotel Chocolat for £534m, although Hotel Chocolate continues to operate with separate policies to Mars Inc. 

Billion dollar multinational Mars Inc. is one of the largest chocolate companies in the world. It scores poorly across our ratings. Mars aims to achieve 100% responsibly sourced cocoa by 2025 through its “Sustainable in a Generation” programme. It reported in 2023 that this had been achieved for its European market. However, accusations of child labour in its cocoa supply chain are far from behind it. For example, a CBS headline in November 2023 read: “Candy company Mars uses cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana”. Mars responded: “Mars unequivocally condemns the use of child labor” and stated it was urgently investigating the claims.

Is Montezuma ethical?

Montezuma’s was bought by Paramount Retail Group (PRG) in a rescue deal in 2023. PRG is a UK family-owned company which owns a number of retail brands, mostly focused on pet care and confectionery. 

The founders of Montezuma’s returned to lead the company as part of the PRG take over and the company still manufactures its chocolate in Sussex. 

Montezuma’s is one of the most widely available independent brands, being sold in many UK supermarkets. While marketed as ethical and sustainable, the policies available on its website lack significant detail regarding its cocoa-sourcing practices. It does, however, have a range of vegan chocolate and a range of certified organic chocolate.

Is there ethical sugar-free chocolate?

Chocolate that is “sugar-free” or virtually sugar-free is likely to be dark chocolate which is very high in cocoa: 85%-100%. The 100% chocolate bars don’t have any added sugar, only sugar which occurs naturally in the cocoa bean.

Some chocolate may be sold as “no sugar added” because it contains reduced sugar and sweeteners instead.

The following brands explicitly marketed products as sugar-free or no added sugar: 

• Paccari 100% Cacao
• Chocolat Madagascar 100%
• Montezuma’s 100% Absolute Black
• Ombar 100%
• Plamil plant milk chocolate & Plamil dark chocolate
• Seed & Bean 100%.

The UK legal minimum amount of cocoa in a milk chocolate bar is just 20% and 35% for dark chocolate. 

How much sugar is in chocolate?

There is no maximum sugar level set for chocolate, only healthy eating guidelines from the NHS which says that a high sugar content is more than 22.5g per 100g (ie more than 22.5%). Generally, the higher the cocoa content, the lower the sugar content.

Interestingly, many bars of chocolate contain more sugar than they do cocoa solids:

• Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is 56% sugar but only 26% cocoa.
• Galaxy is 54% sugar and 25% cocoa.
• Tony’s Chocolonely milk chocolate is 51% sugar and 32% cocoa.

Those ratios tend to switch around with most dark chocolate. It usually has half the amount of sugar as milk chocolate but you have to get to about 70% cocoa to see that:

• Lindt 70% is 29% sugar and 70% cocoa
• Divine 85% dark is 13.9% sugar and 85% cocoa

The big three chocolate companies – Mars, Nestlé, and Mondelēz – tend to focus on sugary milk chocolate. Only Mondelēz does a decent range of dark, less sugary chocolate through its Green & Black’s brand.

Diabetes UK says that chocolate should be seen as a treat, not an everyday food.

How to choose the most ethical chocolate for your budget

How can you choose the most ethical chocolate within your budget? Whether chocolate is an occasional treat or a dietary staple, different ethical brands cater to various budgets. 

For occasional treats, consider value-added-at-source brands if you can afford to pay a bit more. This flowchart compares some of the most ethical brands based on price for a 70% cocoa bar, with exceptions for Moo Free and H!P (vegan milk chocolate) and Vego (hazelnut paste chocolate).

The cost of a bar of chocolate has gone up since we last made this flowchart in 2023. The price of cocoa rose fivefold since 2023 largely because of crop failures in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana due to drought and disease, aggravated by climate change.

Companies have passed some of that rise onto consumers.

Information in the flowchart graphic - brands listed by A to Z.

Limited budget (£1-3 per 100g)

• Tony’s Chocolonely (£2.64)
• Vego (£2.74)

For supermarkets, go for Coop (£2.95) or Waitrose (£1.81) own-brand Fairtrade chocolate.

Can afford a bit more (£3-7 per 100g)

• Cocoa Loco* (£4.99)
• Divine (£3.76)
• Fairafric* (£4.58)
• H!P (£5.00)
• Love Cocoa (£6.60)
• Moo Free (£3.50)
• Ombar (£4.70)
• Plamil (£4.56)

Can afford to pay a lot more (over £7 per 100g): VAS chocolate

• 57’ Chocolate* (£10.14)
• Chocolate Madagascar* (£9.11)
• MonChoco* (£7.47)
• Paccari* (£17.47)

For VAS brands marked with an asterisk*, postage costs are included in the price, based on ordering 10 bars. All prices are per 100g and as at Sept 2025. 

Discounts on ethical chocolate

Some brands sell discounted ‘wonky chocolate’ e.g. Moo Free.

Where can you buy ethical vegan chocolate?

In general, the most ethical chocolate bars aren’t available in supermarkets. Instead you might find them in wholefood and health food shops or you can buy directly from the companies themselves.

Divine, Oxfam's own chocolate, Tony’s Chocolonely, and Vego are more widely available:

• Vego is often sold in ethical stores, Holland & Barrett, and supermarkets.
• Ombar is sold in some Morrisons stores and wholefood shops
• Tony’s Chocolonely is available from some Co-ops, Sainsbury’s, ASDAs, Morrisons and Tescos, as well as Oxfam* shops.
• Oxfam's own chocolate is sold in some of its shops and online* along with Divine chocolate

*Links to affiliate website

Brands not included in the guide

With so many chocolate brands available, we've focused on researching the most ethical and well-known ones. If you're curious about a brand we haven't included, use our 'What to buy/not to buy?' questions as a guide for your own research!

Ethical Valentine’s Day chocolate

Looking for ethical Valentine's Day chocolate? Check the organic, fair trade, and vegan sections for certified brands. 

Plastic-free Valentine's chocolate

Looking for plastic-free Valentine's chocolate? Consider these brands: Cocoa Loco, Divine, Fairafric, H!P, Montezuma’s, Paccari, Seed & Bean, and Tony’s Chocolonely. 

Also, many wholefood and refill shops now offer packaging-free chocolate, like chocolate-covered fruit and nuts or chocolate buttons. Create your own pick-and-mix gift, but be sure to ask the shop owner about the chocolate's ethical standards, such as Fairtrade or organic certifications.

Ethical Valentine’s chocolates that are easy to buy in the UK

Some of our Best Buy companies are a little harder to get hold of because they are 'value added at source' chocolate which as been made in the country of origin of the cacao. For example, brands like ‘57 Chocolate and MonChoco are shipped from abroad, meaning they take some time to arrive, so plan ahead.

Some of the other recommended brands or Best Buys may be stocked in wholefood shops e.g. Vego.

What kind of Valentine's chocolates do ethical brands sell?

The most ethical chocolate brands sell a variety of types of sustainable chocolate, typically bars but some make other products.

Companies often bring out new products so check their websites.

Additional research by Francesca de la Torre.