More on Duffy's Chocolate

Duffy's chocolate (Also known as Red Star chocolate) is a small bean-to-bar, artisanal chocolate producer based in Cleethorpes on the Lincolnshire coast and is the brainchild of motorsport engineer turned chocolate maker Duffy Sheardown.

As a lifelong chocolate enthusiast, Duffy was intrigued to hear on BBC radio in 2007 that only Cadbury’s roasted their own beans in the UK. His curiosity as to why this was the case soon became a quest to set up his own chocolate making operation from roasting beans to wrapping bars, culminating in the launch of a range of chocolate bars bearing his name. Duffy explains “At first sight the worlds of motorsport and chocolate couldn’t be more different, I’ve moved from science and certainty to art and alchemy. On closer acquaintance, both involve huge passion, long hours, hard work and a certain technical rigour. I log and taste everything obsessively and my goal is, quite simply, to make the best chocolate in the world.”

Duffy sources the finest beans that he can find, and as much as possible, working directly with the cocoa farmers. Duffy pays a premium for the finest beans so that the cocoa farmers realise that we appreciate the work they put into growing top quality beans and fermenting and drying them after the harvest.

All of Duffys chocolate bars are single origin and made with cocoa beans from one harvest from one region of one country. The taste of each chocolate bar will vary year-on-year: as the growing conditions change so the flavours slightly change.

Once the beans arrive at Duffy's chocolate they are cleaned and sorted before carefully roasted, de-shelled and stone ground in a slowly-rotating granite grinder for over 50 hours so that the naturally present complex flavours are allowed to fully develop. The other ingredients – usually just Fairtrade/organic sugar for dark chocolate plus milk powder for milk chocolate – are checked and added.

After the extensive preparation the chocolate is ready to be poured into bar moulds, each one representing over 3 days of careful and precise work, but the minimum of intervention.

Duffy continues to combine motorsport consultancy and lecturing at Coventry University with chocolate making, and his engineering skills and ingenuity have proved invaluable in adapting and refurbishing second-hand chocolate manufacturing equipment. He is committed to building Red Star Chocolate slowly, keeping it small enough to ensure both quality and the company’s strong ethical basis.