The company will use Island products across the business, including its cooking and drinking chocolates as well as offering snack bars to customers onsite. Islands makes chocolate from cocoa grown on its farms in the Caribbean island of St Vincent.
Island Chocolates won a three-star Great Taste Award in 2019 and is used at michelin star restaurants including Claude Bosi Sat Bains, The Hand & Flowers, Muse, Marcus and Pollen Street Social.
Pete Redman, chef director at BM, said: “We’re aware of some of the sustainability and ethical issues in the supply chain of chocolate, and we are looking at ways in which we can work more closely with growers to mitigate against these. We are on a journey and partnering with Islands makes a lot of sense.”
The business pays its field staff seven times more than Fairtrade’s recommended rates and farmers are provided with financial security through guaranteed contracts for their cocoa as well as interest-free loans for pruning and fertilising. The cocoa is grown as responsibly as possible using sustainable agricultural principles. For example, cocoa is only grown on agricultural land, generally old banana farms.
Zander Millar, associate director at Islands Chocolate, added: “It is a real pleasure to be working with BM to drive positive change in the contract catering world by offering chocolate with a truly traceable supply chain.
“In an industry filled with endemic issues such as child labour and mass deforestation, we are pleased to be producing a chocolate free of all of that. Pete and the BM team have been huge supporters of us and we feel very fortunate to be working with them as they lead the way in the contract catering industry.”