ChocolateHQ

Producer case studies

One named maker at a time, with every claim sorted by whether anybody outside the company can check it.

What these are

A worked example of a method. The sustainability section argues that most sourcing claims on chocolate cannot be verified by the person reading them; a case study tests that argument against a real company, in public, and publishes the result including the parts that could not be established.

Every statement is sorted into one of three groups. Independently verified means checkable against something that is not the company — a statutory register, a competition organiser, a certifying body. Company-reported means the company says it, recorded accurately as a company statement rather than promoted to a fact. Open questions are things the research asked and did not answer.

What these are not

Not reviews, not rankings, not recommendations and not endorsements. ChocolateHQ publishes no ratings and no purchase links, and there is no field anywhere in its data model that could hold one. Nothing here is a suggestion to buy or avoid anything.

They are also not a directory. A maker’s absence from this page means nothing at all — there is no attempt at coverage, and a company that has not been written about has not been assessed and found wanting.

And they are not audits. Nothing rests on inspecting premises, books or supply chains, so a claim sitting in the company-reported column is not thereby doubted. It is simply not something a reader could check, which is the whole finding.

Disclosure

Where any relationship exists between ChocolateHQ and the subject of a case study, it is stated at the top of that study, above the content rather than beneath it. No case study involves payment, commission, sponsorship, affiliate arrangement or editorial input from its subject. See the editorial policy.

Published case studies

  • Chocolate Tree

    Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom

    A small Scottish bean-to-bar maker in East Lothian, examined as a worked example of how far a sourcing claim can be checked from outside. Corporate identity and a competition listing are confirmable; the sourcing and organic claims are the company's own.

The reasoning these studies apply