A love letter to real brand alignment

When I first came across Pump Street Chocolate many moons ago, I fell a bit in love.

The packaging was beautiful, the branding well thought-out, the product truly delicious. A proper read of their website and I quickly realised there was depth there as well as aesthetic value – this was a transparent company that partnered with their cocoa growers, paying well over Fairtrade prices for their beans, so farmers could look after both their families and their environment. Emphasis was put on flavour too – choosing to produce single origin chocolate, bean to bar, so it always tasted the very best it could.

The more I read, the more I realised we had in common.

Two family companies, making two deceptively simple products the very best they could – even when it meant it was much more labour intensive – using business as a force for good, and being open about their suppliers and processes.

I emailed Joanna, absolutely cold, asking if I could send them some Halen Môn to try. She replied saying yes.

The rest, as they say, is history.

When a brand works with another one in real alignment, people can feel it.

It’s not about an instagram competition, or a press release. Much like in a successful romantic relationship, it’s about two entities becoming more than the sum of their parts when they come together.

I am especially excited, then, after a few years of working together, that this week Pump Street Chocolate have launched a bar so delicious it has been featured in the New York Times. With a label good enough to frame, and a flavour so good it might make you cry, I would highly recommend you get your hands on a bar.

It’ll be coming to our website very soon.