Vegan Chocolate Review – Tony’s Chocolonely and Cocoa Loco

I’ve been an on and off Vegan for a year and a half now, I made the decision in 2017 to cut out all meat, fish, dairy and eggs out of my diet.

Cutting out the meat, fish, eggs and cheese was fine; heck, even cutting out cows milk was easy (and I am a heavy weight champion in tea drinking). The biggest problem I have had is chocolate. It is my weakness, it always has been my weakness. 

Finding a fantastic dairy free chocolate has been the biggest challenge I have faced in my quest for veganism. I have always found dark chocolate is just too bitter for me.

I’ve tried so many different brands of dairy free chocolate, I’ve even made my own raw chocolate (which in fairness was not all that bad) but still the problem I had was the bitter after taste.

And so since 2017 I’ve been largely plant based, with my dirty little chocolate secret kept safe.

That is, until I tried some of the delicious new chocolates from Babipur- Tony’s Chocolonely, and Cocoa Loco. I was introduced to these brands through a chance trial- Babipur had sent me some in the post and when it arrived I was hopeful it would not be like the others-but  just by looking at these two brands I could tell they weren’t going to be like other more mainstream chocolate brands I’d tried.

I examined both of the bars from the two different companies and they smelled so nice, they must have made a mistake and sent me a non vegan version. Nope- there it was in plain writing- ingredients all clear of any milk.

Tony’s Chocolonely

So I first opened the packet of Tony’s Chocolonely and snapped off a piece and popped it in my mouth. “Wow”…chew chew… “oh wow this is really yummy”…chew chew “is this really dark chocolate?” chew chew… “don’t eat it too fast, this is heaven!” Gulps. “Just wow”. 

So I break another chunk off and repeat the process, and the whole time I’m popping piece after piece in my mouth I’m reading the packaging over and over as if I’m desperate to find some evidence that yet again I have been naughty and given in to dairy chocolate. But no- still dairy free. 

The taste

I can’t explain how satisfying it is to find something you enjoy that much, and it to be guilt free. The creaminess of the bar tricks you into thinking that you’re eating milk chocolate, and what I love about this particular flavour of the Tony’s chocolate is that it has tiny bits of nut in there and reminds me of that triangular chocolate that I shan’t name 😉 The Tony’s dark chocolate bar is not bitter at all, and the creamy flavour is incredible.

The flavour comes in segments – it starts off with a dark chocolate taste, but as you let it melt in your mouth the creamy tones come through and then its a full on silky flavour invasion in your mouth. 

Yes I am aware I’m very over enthusiastic!

Even as I write this I’m munching on a piece…Ok maybe more than one piece, but I’ve definitely not polished off half a bar while writing this… ok I have. But I’m not sorry.

Ok so now that I’ve gushed about this in my oh- so poetic way, I’ll talk about the product- the ingredients, and the packaging.

The ingredients

The first thing I noticed when looking at the ingredients on the back of the packaging is there are only seven ingredients-there is no oil, there are no additives. The ingredients are 100% organic, and the bars are made of course to fair trade standards. The calories aren’t even that bad- per 100g bar there are 539 calories, but in the smaller 47g bars I worked out there’s only about 253 calories – which isn’t bad at all, so even more guilt free as far as I’m concerned.

The packaging is fab too, the branding is really retro and funky- it reminds me of Wonka chocolate bar wrappers, but the best thing of all about the packaging is it’s fully recyclable.

Cocoa Loco

This brings me to my next favourite new brand- Cocoa Loco range of chocolates. Now again, I can only vouch for how amazing the vegan chocolates are; but given how good they are I have no doubt that the milk chocolate is incredible. What I love about this brand is that it has so much choice! You have the option of buying chocolate with different fruit in them, chocolate buttons (white, dark and milk) and also some really amazing hot chocolate spoons, me and my partner had one each last night and they were incredibly rich and delicious.

We have so far tried the hot chocolate spoons (including the exclusive Babipur one with the little chocolate elephant), and the dark chocolate raspberry stars– these are incredible. The stars are fantastically chunky too, which means you only need a couple at a time to satisfy your chocolate craving- so they go further. Though I cannot say the same for the buttons– which I know for a fact I would inhale in well under an hour if I was given a chance.

The taste

The Cocoa Loco dark chocolate is so incredibly tasty though, I especially love the little raspberry pieces in the stars, they add a little ‘zing’ to the overall flavour. 

The ingredients

There’s about six ingredients in the chocolate stars too- all natural and organic. The chocolate is fair trade, which is really important because you know the people who make the chocolate are not being exploited. Per 100g there’s 557 calories which really isn’t bad at all, and the stars go along way because they are so lovely and rich.

I can’t explain how happy I am now that I have found some excellent quality, fairtrade and organic vegan chocolate .Dark chocolate has always been something that I’ve found very hard to get into, but these two brands have completely changed my opinion of it. Their quality is high, it would have to be to have Babipur stock it- so the quality of the ingredients obviously improve the flavour. 

What ever the reason, it’s wonderful to have found some chocolate brands that are vegan, or organic and fair trade- thanks to these I am now totally dairy free, and I feel fantastic for it 🙂

Huge thanks to Emily for sharing her love of vegan chocolate with us xx