Turbulent Tariffs, Calm Chocolate: A Very British Way To Cope

While Washington argues about tariffs and British exports get caught in the crossfire, most of us are just trying to enjoy a decent cup of tea and something good with it. Recent US trade turbulence has hit iconic British brands hard – even Brompton has had to rethink how it does business in America as tariffs and uncertainty bite – and it’s made many of us quietly ask: when I “buy British”, where does my money actually go?

At Russell & Atwell, our answer starts in the fridge rather than in a trade negotiation. We think buying British should feel less like a policy choice and more like opening the door to something properly scrumptious.

From Equator Cocoa To British Cream

 

We’re not going to pretend cocoa trees are secretly growing in East Anglia. Cocoa only thrives around the equator, so we use some of the world’s finest sustainable beans, then bring them home to our artisanal chocolate facility just outside London, where they meet lashings of British cream, a drizzle of British honey and just a pinch British sea salt.

 

We began with a simple question: if fresh milk, bread and pasta taste better, why are so many of us still eating long‑life chocolate made to sit on a shelf for a year? Our answer was to build recipes around five real ingredients: shed‑loads of sustainable cocoa, fresh British organic cream and butter, (just enough sugar), a drizzle of British wildflower honey and a pinch of Dorset sea salt.  No palm oil, no preservatives you can’t pronounce, no “natural flavourings” doing the heavy lifting in the background – just proper food from people we actually know.

The cocoa brings depth and intensity from around the equator; the British ingredients bring freshness, character and that “how on earth is this from a pouch?” restaurant‑quality texture.

 

Proudly British… With A Passport

 

 

So yes, our cocoa has more air miles than our milk – that’s the nature of the cocoa tree – but everything comes together in small batches in our chocolate facility just outside London. That’s where the tempering, filling, shelling and hand‑finishing happens, with far more chat, tasting spoons and raised eyebrows than you’d ever find on an anonymous mega‑factory line.

 

Buying British here means supporting British jobs, British dairy farms, British beekeepers and British sea‑salt makers, while still giving full credit to the equatorial farmers without whom chocolate simply wouldn’t exist. It’s quite literally a melting-pot...all ending up in your fridge as something properly indulgent.

 

Real British Ingredients, Ridiculously Real Chocolate

 

Our organic milk comes from Cotteswold Dairy, where the farms sit within about 12 miles of the dairy and cows graze on pasture for much of the year. 

 

Our wildflower honey from Salisbury Plain (for the Dark Chocolate) or Essex Borage (for the Milk Chocolates) is cold‑pressed in small batches by the Wainwright family, and will naturally vary by season depending on what the bees have been feeding on. 

 

Our Dorset sea salt is hand‑harvested from Britain’s Jurassic Coast powered by low‑carbon biomass.

 

The magic is as much what we leave out as what we put in: no palm oil, no long‑life tricks, just a chilled shelf life and that famous “double crack” – shell first, then melting centre – you only get when chocolate uses proper ingredients and is properly made.  It’s “real food” in the old‑fashioned sense of the phrase, made by actual humans.

 

Hand‑Finished, Marbled Easter Eggs, Fresh From London

This year, all that equator‑meets‑England goodness has hatched into our freshly launched Easter Eggs, each one hand‑finished and hand‑wrapped in our London chocolate kitchen. Every shell is gently marbled as it’s made, so no two eggs are ever quite the same – every egg, and indeed every bite, has its own unique swirl of chocolate.

 

Moulded in small batches, hand-finished and inspected by actual humans, and wrapped by hand rather than machine. These are Easter Eggs for people searching for “quality British Easter eggs”, “hand‑finished chocolate eggs” and “real‑ingredient Easter chocolate”, but who secretly just want something outrageously delicious.

 

Buying British, Tasting The World

 

 

So when you choose Russell & Atwell you’re buying British in the best possible way: cocoa from the equator, cream from British fields, honey and salt from our countryside and coastline, all coming together in an artisan chocolate kitchen just outside London.  Less flag‑waving, more fridge‑raiding – and, if we’ve done our job properly, chocolates and marbled Easter Eggs that disappear suspiciously quickly once they’re in the house.