Sustainability Spotlight | Barbers Bean to Bar
Founded by chocolatier, pastry chef and tutor Michael Barber, Barbers Bean to Bar offers a unique range of ten chocolate bars, seven hot chocolates and four innovative Cocoa Teas. Michael combines his culinary knowledge with ethical sourcing and biodegradable packaging, to create eco-friendly products that support cocoa farmers and are delicious and multi-award winning.
What have you done to make your business more sustainable?
At Barbers Bean to Bar, sustainability is a core principle, reflected in both our eco-friendly packaging and commitment to the cocoa industry. Our packaging is designed to be completely biodegradable, with cardboard tubes that can be repurposed as plant pots and the loose tea bag made from tree sap.
This ethos of ‘nothing goes to waste’ extends to the way we approach our cocoa supply chain. By paying fair prices to small farmers, we aim to positively impact the cocoa industry, supporting better wages, improved crops, and a more ethical, sustainable environment for farmers.
Barbers latest innovation, Single-Origin Peruvian Whole Bean Cocoa Tea, was recently awarded a coveted three stars in the Great Taste Awards. Crafted from wild Peruvian Amazon cocoa beans, the cocoa teas deliver natural cocoa aromas and fruity undertones. The teas are vegan, sugar-free, and nutrient-rich, making them a healthier alternative to hot chocolate with less caffeine than decaf coffee.
What would you change in the future to improve sustainability further?
We try to make our packaging as environmentally friendly as possible, but the part that I would really like to improve is our electricity and power usage. Making chocolate is a very power-hungry exercise with cocoa beans needing to be ground for around three days.
We’re lucky that we’ve got a very large roof on top of our property, so we have an opportunity to cover it with solar panels in the future, with the aim of generating as much electricity as the business uses, as green and renewable as possible.
Luckily, we barely need heating because the melanger chocolate maker heats up the room for us. But the use of solar panels would quite happily solve the electricity issue and mean that our chocolate would have an even smaller carbon footprint.
What tips do you have for other businesses that want to become more sustainable?
I believe that every business should operate with sustainability at its core. If every business starts off with that in mind and factors in those costs from the start, every product out there can be sustainable. It's much harder to retrospectively change to be a more a environmentally friendly business.
The more a business can invest in its sustainable supply chain the better for everybody. In the chocolate business, I know that the more I can pay a good price for my cocoa beans from small farmers, the more they can invest and improve conditions for their workers and the whole cycle improves.
That’s only going to happen with more craft chocolate makers and the bigger the sector can get, the more impact it can have. We’re focused on retaining the quality of our products, but the more we can invest in the cocoa industry, the better for everybody.