PLAYin CHOC

PLAYin CHOC was created to give my lactose intolerant kids a dairy-free and plastic-free chocolate and toy treat where none was previously available. The billions of pieces of plastic waste which go into landfill from Kinder Surprise each year troubles me.

I wanted to create something all kids with food allergies could enjoy, and at the same time learn creatively about our planets bio-diversity and what they can do to help protect it.

We developed our first recipe and product in 18 months using subcontractors, however by mid 2018 we took the process in house in order to control quality/margins. By September 2019 we had a fully developed range of ethical and sustainable products to launch from our new factory in Uxbridge.

Our Woodland Animals ToyChoc boxes started flying with Norwegian Airways on 100 routes in February 2020, and we expanded our exports to 30 countries, including via 20 distributors to Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, Benelux and Norway.

The pandemic closed physical and travel retail, and reduced exports (along with Brexit), and now we are focused on developing UK supermarkets and our online direct to consumer sales. We were in the top 1% of new websites by sales on Shopify, and list with Ocado this month.