Ethically-inspired chocolate business Made Uncommon has struck a second acquisition just weeks after changing its cooperate identity from Coco Chocolatier.
London-based Love Cocoa joins the Made Uncommon brand portfolio following the recent takeover of Seed & Bean Chocolates, according to Calum Haggerty, the founder of Coco Chocolatier.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Haggerty has promoted the twin transactions on LinkedIn, describing Love Cocoa as an “ethically grounded chocolate brand with a clear mission to make delicious chocolate that does good for the people behind it”.
Love Cocoa was set up by CEO James Cadbury, the great, great, great grandson of John Cadbury, the founder of Birmingham, UK-based Cadbury chocolate now owned by US confectionery and snacks giant Mondelez International.
“James built something distinctive. Starting and scaling any brand takes grit, and this one carried the weight of a name that meant something in British chocolate long before most of us were born,” Haggerty said in his post.
“James is stepping back to focus on his growing family.”
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataH!p Chocolate bars are the mainstay of Love Cocoa’s portfolio, which consists of milk and dark chocolate tablets, and truffles.
According to Love Cocoa’s website, its chocolates are “made from the finest single-origin cacao, sourced from sustainable suppliers who ensure farmers receive above-average prices for their crops”. The company pledges to donate 1% of annual sales to reforestation projects.
In 2023, the business secured GBP4.3m ($5.6m today) in Series A funding from Richard Koch, a venture-capital investor. At the time, Love Cocoa was selling into Harrods and John Lewis stores, while the H!P Chocolate brand was stocked in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Ocado.
Upon the corporate identity change, Haggerty said in a LinkedIn post three weeks ago that he left the fire service in 2013 to set up Coco Chocolatier. It has since launched the “verified child-labour-free chocolate brand” Up-Up Chocolate and the “plant-based single-origin” line Otherly.
He added that the business is now operating out of a recently built facility in Edinburg, Scotland, based at Port Edgar Marina.
Haggerty described Made Uncommon as a “new umbrella identity to unite our brands and give us the platform for what comes next”.
Two weeks ago, the entrepreneur then revealed the acquisition of Seed & Bean, which he noted is “one of Britain’s most pioneering ethical chocolate brands” founded in 2015.
Seed & Bean is committed to zero waste and zero plastic as a business that has “embraced ethical practises”, according to its website. The brand has listings in Sainsbury’s, Whole Foods Market and Planet Organic, amongst others.
On the heels of the acquisition, Haggerty posted: “Made Uncommon is more than a home for our own brands. It is a platform for acquiring and scaling the next generation of challenger brands.”
