9 best plastic-free Easter eggs that are easy to recycle

This thick and creamy egg with a hint of orange went down an absolute storm in our office. Made with Belgian milk chocolate, the orange pattern is a crunchy contrast to the rest of the egg, which is hand decorated. It’s essentially a chocolate orange in Easter form, and the quality far exceeds the tiny price tag. It’s an absolute bargain, and we’re finding it hard to not be greedy and buy a few. The plastic-looking film in the box is compostable and there’s a cardboard support at the bottom to keep it in place.

This one’s not an egg shape, but we love these cute little spring-time animals, which include two white chocolate lambs, two milk chocolate bunnies and two marbled chocolate lambs in a little box full of make-shift straw, in entirely recyclable packaging. The praline chocolate has a hint of hazelnut, is ethically sourced from the Grenada Chocolate company and is wonderfully creamy and decadent. We assure you these won’t hang around for long.

The brand claims to be the only chocolate company that’s managed to convert its entire range to sustainable packaging – which is either recyclable or biodegradable – as of February 2020. The smooth and creamy milk chocolate of this cheery chick-shaped egg is hard to stop eating, and we loved the large buttons that come with it, too. It’s also one of the only eggs not to include tinfoil.

Founded by James Cadbury in 2016, Love Cocoa’s egg has already sold out from most stockists – and we know why: it’s one of the best tasting eggs on the list. It didn’t hang around for long with us either. Coming in this lovely spring-coloured cardboard box – which we’re reusing to store pens – it’s made from 70 per cent organic cacao from Columbia, which has been fairly traded. The chocolate is handmade, has a hint of sea salt and is absolutely delicious.

From the brand that’s trying to eradicate slavery from the chocolate supply chain – it has unequal squares on its chocolate bars to show the disproportionate money involved from grower to buyer – are these lovely brightly coloured mini eggs. The cardboard carton has spread seven flavours across the 12 eggs: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, nougat, hazelnut, caramel sea salt, almond sea salt and pretzel toffee. Our favourite is the almond sea salt. The eggs may be mini, but mighty in flavour.

This egg comes in a seriously protective cardboard hexagon design – which we’re seeing more and more of – and shows how there’s absolutely no need for plastic to protect anything. It’s easy to remove and keep in tact to reuse too. This egg has the most unusual ingredient in our list: yellow gorse flower picked from hedgerows in Cornwall, which gives a lightly toasted coconutty flavour to the to 50 per cent milk chocolate. It’s delicate, delicious and innovative in packaging design as well as flavour.

Although it says it’s for kids, we’re pretty sure anyone – adults included – would love to receive this lovely egg. Coming in just a cardboard box – that’s ever so pretty – this milk chocolate egg is covered in gold tinfoil, has three cute little chicks, a gold-dusted egg inside and is packed with brown shredded paper. The smooth chocolate egg is creamy, thick and good quality. It’s also available in dark chocolate with little bunnies inside.

Born from the idea of making chocolate as ethical and sustainable as possible, all the chocolate from this brand – which was set up by Gavin Cox who grew up in South America – comes from the Casa Luker estate in Colombia. The estate’s supply chain is traceable and it invests not only in its farmers and environmental farming methods, but the communities too. The egg combines bee pollen with honey, which gives the dark chocolate a little sweetness. It’s grown up and pretty innovative. The packaging is fully biodegradable cardboard that uses vegetable based inks and all the illustrations are drawn by Gavin’s mum, Dawn.