Meet the maker
Ocelot
About Ocelot
Ocelot was founded by Matt and Ish in 2013, who met behind a fridge door at a party (while on the hunt for a snack) on a snowy Christmas night in Scotland. With their wedding gift money, Matt and Ish invested in a small tempering machine and a trademark, and started producing chocolate in their apartment which they later sold at farmers markets. Despite quickly gaining a mass of followers and moving into a factory with a production team, an ambitious expansion project and the financial turmoil of 2022 took them under.
Thankfully, they were saved by their long-time supplier, Original Beans, who took them over. Original Beans also invested in a new processing facility and production team based in Dundee, Scotland. As part of Original Beans, the crafting of Ocelot’s is overseen by Vera Hoffman, who makes their chocolate with Felchlin in Switzerland into various couvertures which are then processed into full size bars, mini bars and cooking/drinking chocolate drops in Dundee
How they became makers…
Matt and Ish became inspired by their love for each other and a mutual passion for cooking and eating delicious things, and embarked on a culinary journey which involved the couple cooking around Europe for two years. During their travels, the pair discovered their love for working with chocolate and – given their mutual love of design – Matt and Ish decided to combine the two to create a chocolate making business.
Ocelot’s Sourcing
Ocelot Chocolate work with Original Beans to create a special couverture. Original Beans prioritise traceability, and have created cocoa initiatives in some of the world’s most endangered environments – working in war zones and political hotspots, nurturing protection and biodiversity in critically endangered rainforests. Original Beans have also preserved seven heirloom and regional cacao varieties, some of which were nearing extinction and are harvested only by this organisation. A lot of the chocolate Ocelot sources from Original Beans is from an all female cooperative in DRC.
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