Reflections on 10 years of Cocoa Runners, and a new chapter

Just under a decade ago, we launched Cocoa Runners as the world’s first craft chocolate subscription service. We offered two options; a dark only, or milk and dark chocolate option; and we’d send four full-size craft bars each month, along with our tasting notes.

Initially, we only delivered to the UK. We quickly expanded; started to distribute to over seventy countries, offered individual bars and gift boxes, extended into drinking and cooking chocolate and launched both in-person and online virtual tastings.

We’ve sent out over 500 different monthly boxes (we now offer multiple subscriptions: Dark-only, dark and milk, milk-only, coffee & chocolate, and whisky & chocolate). Our core approach has remained the same; we passionately believe that craft chocolate is an adventure in every sense. We seek out the widest and most delicious range of craft chocolate bars from all over the world. We believe these craft chocolate bars offer unparalleled deliciousness, delight, and new adventures every month, and every delivery. These bars are great for you and your family in terms of flavour, education, sharing, and health. Craft chocolate is far better for the environment and planet than mass-produced confectionery and indeed most other foods. Craft chocolate offers a critical lifeline for cocoa farmers, their families and wider communities. And we never sell a bar that we don’t believe is delicious (we taste every bar we put into our library) and we, either in person, or via video call, meet with every maker, understand how they craft their beans and from where, and whom, they source those beans.

Read our new ‘about us’ page →

The journey has had its share of adventures. When we launched there wasn’t any off-the-shelf ecommerce solution for monthly subscriptions. And we were determined to do more than ‘just’ sell bars and subscriptions. So we launched ‘maker pages‘, our ‘Craft Chocolate Matters‘ weekly email, a section of the site called ‘Chocopedia‘ to dig into the science, socioeconomics, environmental/ethical impact, and history of craft chocolate, and a whole raft of other content. Plus, we worked with friends in parallel industries like speciality coffee, fine wine, artisan cheese, Scotch whisky and more.

Time has flown by. But time has not been kind to our decade-old website! And earlier this year we bit-the-bullet and kicked off a website and branding overhaul with UnitedUs; a passionate brand and digital agency based in Brighton. Appropriately, we met UnitedUs via a virtual tasting gifted to one of their partners by a long-time Cocoa Runners subscriber. They immediately got what we were trying to do, and gently pointed out a bunch of painful website and branding/messaging issues. And they weren’t phased by our WordPress site that was practically groaning over what can charitably be described as “a decade of spaghetti code”!

Now after over three months of hard work, we’ve launched the new site. Hopefully you’ll find that CocoaRunners.com now is a whole lot faster; especially on mobile. And we hope you’ll find presents easier to gift, tastings easier to book, and subscriptions simpler to manage. Indeed, everything should be a lot easier to navigate thanks to a new menu structure and simplified browse. Search now works too. Plus we hope that you’ll like the new colour scheme and logo.

Discover craft bars in our new-and-improved catalogue →

Or try our easy-to-use booking system for tastings →

There is also a whole lot more to come; for example; even better ways to share your favourite bars, new tasting experiences you can hold at home (or when out at a dinner party), AI-enabled aromas for best-selling bars off the mobile website (…not really! This is a joke).

We do know that there may be a few wrinkles as we roll out the new site. If you come across any bugs, please do let us know (for example; we do know that there have been a few issues carrying over any ‘favourited’ bars you may have made, but this should be fixed imminently). Similarly, if there are other features you’d us to explore, do also email us. But please remember we are a REALLY small team; even with the fantastic support of UnitedUs.

Please rest assured that we’ll continue to be bringing on new makers, new bars, and more tastings. Indeed, we’re close to confirming an indoors craft chocolate pop-up in central London on the 2nd and 3rd of December (so please reserve the date for your diaries).

Thanks again for all your support. And do please take a look at the new site, and do please use the code DISCOVER15 for 15% off all bars, and NEWCRVT for 20% off all tasting kits.

Explore craft chocolate bars with a 15% discount →

So please give the new website a whirl, treat yourself, your friends and family, and tell us what you think.

Thanks as ever for your support.

Keep savouring!

– Spencer

p.s. If you do like the look and feel of the new website, and are considering a website refresh of your own do write to me for a personal intro to Natalie, Jan, and Luke from UnitedUs (and no, we’re not on commission!).

Check out UnitedUs’ exceptional portfolio →