Interview with: Bare Bones Chocolate
Bare Bones Chocolate is a Glasgow based, micro-batch bean-to-bar chocolate company started up by business (& real life) partners Lara Messer & Cameron Dixon in 2018. These guys create devilishly delicious bars from the world’s finest cacao; bringing craft chocolate to another level (seriously). They sell single-origin handmade chocolate bars and hot chocolate across the UK and Ireland, as well as host chocolate tasting events from their beautiful and recently renovated Glasgow Arches factory based in Osborne Street.
From the very beginning, up to this day Lara & Cameron do everything themselves (of course now with a growing team of Bare Bones choccy recruits) they work from the very first stage of the process to the finished, packaged product; and there's very few brands doing that in the UK right now. Each bar is hand crafted, and wrapped in sustainable plant-based & fully compostable paper, and their unique and beautifully self-designed packaging boxes are made using recycled coffee cups. You don’t only enjoy the Bare Bones products but it makes you feel good about buying from/supporting such a forward thinking and sustainably focused brand.
We chat to the guys about their backgrounds, their journey into the world of craft chocolate, a typical day in the chocolate factory, advice on starting up your own business and the guys share some of their favourite spots to visit in Glasgow…
Hi guys! Can you talk a little bit about yourselves & how you guys started up Bare Bones? How did you get into chocolate?
Hello! We were fanatical about coffee when we were younger. We used to plan holidays and day trips around coffee shops – forget about the sights and architecture, we were searching ‘Best flat white in ____’. We loved the attention to detail, trying different origins and blends and also the atmosphere in coffee shops.
A few years later I was a food photographer in London, working on an online food and lifestyle magazine. My job was to photograph makers, chefs and cafes and I fell in love with the craftsmanship and the idea of having a food business.
Cameron is a mechanical engineer (which has helped massively because chocolate is all science + engineering!) and worked with a premium automotive manufacturer.
One day after a long shoot, I was eating bean to bar chocolate on my train home. I was lost in a day dream, thinking about how cool it would be if you could make chocolate all day. I started googling how you make it and couldn’t believe the work and skill behind making a chocolate bar!
We quickly became obsessed, learning everything we could from blogs and books, and started making chocolate at home. The business slowly grew from there! And we have been hooked ever since.
“We want to convey the beauty of cacao and how different each origin can taste – purely through the genetics, the terroir, the origin and how we craft it.”
You have a strong emphasis on your product packaging being recycled and sustainably sourced. Do you guys consider yourselves sustainably focused in your every day living? How important is this aspect to you?
Yes absolutely! Sustainability is so important to us in all aspects of our life. It was so important when designing the packaging, and the brand itself, that we focused on being as mindful as we could. Always making sure we are making the most sustainable choices for the planet and for people – from our packaging to working with co-operatives and paying over 3x the fair-trade rate for our cacao.
We only use packaging from recycled sources that can be recycled or composted after use. Our beautiful colourful boxes are made from recycled paper coffee cups and the inside wrappers are made from plants! We are so proud to be working with UK paper makers and printers too.
In our day to day life, we love cycling (you’ll always see us with boxes of chocolate strapped to our bike!) which is also so good for clearing our heads after a busy day.
What do you find is the most gratifying part of your work?
Seeing how happy the chocolate can make someone or being part of a gift or special event means everything to us. I once saw someone give our chocolate as a birthday gift in the park – I couldn’t believe it!!
How do you decide which origins to work with? What do you want to convey with your bars?
For us, the magic of bean to bar is honouring the incredible work the farmers have already nurtured and coax out the natural flavour within the bean. We try the beans raw (which is the really cool thing about cacao which you can’t do with coffee) and see what taste notes jump out at us. We really love fruity chocolates – I love the cherry tones of the Madagascar, the yellow fruit of the Guatemala or the raisin tones of Honduras. From there we will carefully roast the beans and run a test batch as a 70%.
We always test beans as a 70% and from there you can think what it might need, almost like tasting a meal for seasoning. Does it need a bit of a lift? Should it be sweeter? Should it be darker/have more intense tones?
We want to convey the beauty of cacao and how different each origin can taste – purely through the genetics, the terroir, origin and how we craft it. It’s amazing to think you can sit at home with a tiny bit of something from Colombia or the Philippines. It’s like a passport through food!
Are there any chocolates on the market you enjoy or admire? Any favourites for you for texture or flavour?
We absolutely love Dandelion chocolate from San Francisco. We really admire everything they have created and how much they have changed the chocolate scene. Their range is made up of all 70% chocolates, which highlights so clearly the wonder of single origin and how different each can taste!
Out of all your chocolate bar products, which is your personal favourite & why?
At the moment, I can’t get enough of our new limited edition bar. It’s a 70% from the Philippines and tastes just like pecan pie or créme brûlée. It’s sweet like caramelised sugar with a really creamy texture.
Bare Bones single origin Philippines 70% Dark Chocolate Bar with creamy notes of créme brûlée and pecan pie.
You have recently expanded and moved workshops into the most beautiful arches on Osborne Street, Glasgow. This place serves as your micro-batch factory, you host tours and chocolate tastings there, and run a shop there on weekends for a proper hot choc pick me up... How does it feel managing/running all of this? Did you find any challenges and how did you overcome them?
We can’t believe how lucky we are to have found such a gorgeous unit. We lost out on two units before this one, so we couldn’t quite believe when we finally had keys in our hands. It didn’t seem real for weeks!
It does feel like we are always juggling a lot, but we are so passionate about what we do that we can always try to take it in our stride. We know how lucky we are to be working everyday on something we love, which makes it easier I think.
There are always challenges that crop up – logistics of bean/ingredient deliveries at the moment gives me a sore head! – but we tackle them one step at a time and always when eating chocolate ;)
“Our mission is to grow so that more people enjoy our chocolate but also so everyone in the chain will grow too. The farmers, paper makers, printers, ingredients suppliers, the wonderful shops we work with and more. Community is very important to our ethos.”
Team Bare Bones & some glimpses of the factory on 7/9 Osborne Street, Glasgow
For anyone who wants to visit Glasgow, are there any places you’d recommend going to see? and what is your favourite thing about living in this city?
I think Glasgow is like a mini London. There are so many coffee shops, restaurants, beautiful homeware shops, bustling bars and lots of parks too!
For coffee, food + good vibes we love:
Us V them, Perch and Rest, Outlier, Short Long Black, Naked Soup, Gloriosa, Julies Kopitiam, Little Hoi Ann, Sunny Acre, Roots and Fruits, Bell Jar, The Belle, Errol’s Pizza, Banana Moon
Where do you see the artisan chocolate market going? Just like the coffee industry, it really has picked up in the last few years... How do you think it’ll change five years from now?
We can really see the market growing which is fantastic. The more the community grows means that more craft chocolate is being made, which in turn means that more farmers are being paid fairly for their crop. Hopefully this will mean there will be less demand for mass-manufactured chocolate one day.
For us, our mission is to grow so that more people enjoy our chocolate but also so everyone in the chain will grow too. The farmers, paper makers, printers, ingredients suppliers, the wonderful shops we work with and more. Community is very important to our ethos.
What does your typical day look like?
My role is really varied, which I love! I’m either communicating with our wholesale partners and online customers, working on our instagram/digital content, getting set up for our chocolate tasting nights (we host them twice a week), designing packaging for new releases or planning ideas!
What is your favourite ‘sweet thing’ & why?
My new favourite sweet thing is cacao husk syrup. It’s almost like an agave syrup substitute and we make it from our leftover cacao husks (which are a bi-product for us). It goes so well with granola/pancakes/ice-cream/everything and we are going to start bottling it too!!
Lara with a chocolate slab for flaking
Aside from being the coolest chocolate makers, what do you guys get up to on your days off? Do you have any hobbies?
That is so lovely!! We love cycling, going for coffee and making lovely food from cookbooks. At the moment I am cooking through Thomasina Miers’ meat-free Mexico!
For anyone who’s thinking about starting their own business - is there any advice you could share from personal experience?
My best piece of advice is to really keep on top of your finances and be as ‘Bare Bones’ as you can at the start. We started making chocolate on such a tiny budget and had to make a lot of our first machines as we couldn’t afford to buy them. We did (and still do!) everything ourselves to keep costs low – from packaging design, social media assets, book-keeping etc. This was so good to prove out our idea before taking a huge plunge!
Once you know that your business is on the right track and there is a demand for it, I’d also say that it is important to invest in what will make your life easier. We were so worried about everything working that we struggled for a long long time with small machinery that meant we were working all hours of the day!
What’s in store for Bare Bones in 2022?
We are collaborating with some amazing people this year which we are so excited about. We are launching a couple of collaboration bars, Christmas specials, chocolate milk and the husk syrup! All delicious, I can confirm!!
