The innovative chocolate company with taste for ethical trading

Montezuma's chocolate has been described as a "stroke of genius", "funky" and "a taste of paradise". On tucking into a piece of their dried mango dipped in white chocolate flavoured with lime and chilli, it's difficult to argue with any of these accolades. In fact, it's difficult to do anything but concentrate on the remarkable flavours exploding in your mouth.

"Our aim was to create a chocolate company that was really innovative, good quality and interestingly packaged," says founder, Simon Pattinson. "Despite all the chocolate providers in the UK, I still don't think that exists elsewhere. At one end of the spectrum, you've got cheap and cheerful chocolate bars and at the other end, you have boutique chocolate shops - we try to sit comfortably in the middle."

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"We make all our own chocolate on site in Chichester," he says. Although you wouldn't know it at first glance, some other multiple chocolate retailers have very little or no manufacturing experience at all."

For a chocolate company - or indeed any food brand - not to manufacture the majority of its own products, believes Pattinson, is simply to "stick a brand name on a box." "It means you lack integrity as a company and that doesn't get loyalty from customers or suppliers."

Rewind a decade and Pattinson hadn't a clue about the chocolate industry. "My wife, Helen, and I were both City lawyers and were getting increasingly dissatisfied with the long hours and long commutes. OK, we were well paid, but we never had any time, so we decided to jack it all in and go off travelling for a few months while we decided what we wanted to do with our lives. The plan was to explore South America, have some fun and come back with a notebook of business ideas."

Chocolate threatened to top the list as soon as they came across a little town in the middle of the Argentinean lake district where a large German population ran several chocolate shops. "We got thinking about why there wasn't more innovation in chocolate in the UK," says Pattinson. "When we reached Venezuela and accidentally ended up staying on a cocoa plantation, we became fascinated by these beautiful trees and fruit and how it becomes one of the world's most addictive foods."

Upon their return, the couple spent six months eating copious amounts of chocolate and researching every corner of the industry until they found a gap in the market. "It helped that I'm an amateur and experimental cook," says Pattinson. Indeed, product development - including all Montezuma's unusual flavours, such as their strawberry and paprika chocolate bar - is his area. "Take our truffles," he says. "I've done a lot of work around balancing flavours to come up with things like lime, tequila and chilli. I also spend a lot of time ensuring that we don't do copycat designs when it comes to textures. So with truffles, for example, you'll find that ours aren't the typical French or Belgian recipe of runny centres but a firmer centre that we promote as our very own."

In 2000, Montezuma's started with one little chocolate machine and one shop in Brighton, selling 200 products ranging from organic chocolate lollies to huge boxes filled with chunky truffles. Seven years on, the 60-person-strong company has launched a new store in Newbury, joining others in Winchester, Chichester, Windsor, Lichfield and Spitalfields Market, London. Montezumas also has a growing wholesale and mail order business and the targeted turnover for this year is £4m. There are plans for the opening of 10 further stores during 2007/08.

Currently, all Montezuma's organic cocoa comes from co-operative plantations in the Dominican Republic and Peru. "Besides focusing on sourcing the finest ingredients, it was always important to us that growers get a fair price," explains Pattinson. "Both of these co-ops have a strong social structure that re-invests in the local society and infrastructure in a way that makes their cocoa-based agriculture sustainable, equitable and, indeed, profitable."

Right from the word go, the Pattinsons put ethics at the heart of the business. "It really was a passion of me and Helen's that if we could make the business profitable, then we should make part of the aim of the business to make life more comfortable for the societies we come into contact with," he explains. "In fact, it's essential to us to deal fairly with all our suppliers so that we don't exploit anyone in the entire chain from grower to consumer."

Even the Fair Trade banner doesn't live up to the Pattinson's high standards. "We think Fair Trade has some significant issues to resolve, including to my mind not allowing their branded products to be sold by any retailers who do not uphold the highest ethical and equitable standards," he says. "With this in mind, we currently only deal with two multiples: Waitrose and Fresh & Wild. So far they are the only two who persuaded us their ideals and operational approach is something that could be described as 'trading fairly'."

Pattinson recalls a recent Radio 2 phone-in where a listener said they buy Green & Black's chocolate because it's the only Fair Trade chocolate available in the UK. "That's simply not true," he insists.

The Pattinsons' commitment to ethics even spills out into its advertising budget. "We don't advertise. Instead, we use the budget that we would do for advertising to support charitable works - whether that's providing Easter eggs for a charity Easter Egg hunt or getting actively involved with fundraising for different projects. I don't want to sound holier than thou, but it sits much more comfortably with both our private and company values."