About Us

Our aim is to source the best quality cocoa beans in the most sustainable, social and environmental way. Whenever possible, we  use fresh, locally sourced ingredients. As chocolate makers, we are impassioned and feel a responsibility for translating cacao’s unique taste and heritage through our chocolate. We use our stringent, hard-earned expertise to achieve this, founded on the framework of education and many cycles of  trial and error.

Our History

More than two decades ago in the heart of the market town of Beccles, on the Suffolk/Norfolk border, my parents, Richard and Amanda Harris-Godfrey, opened a cafe in a prominent Grade II listed building. Twenty-three years on and Twyfords cafe continues to grow from the ethos of quality produce and friendly service.

From a firm foundation, my father added small batch coffee bean roasting back in 2013 under the name of Harris & James, this planted the seed to what would follow. Early in 2015 my father and I visited an exhibition in Paris and witnessed a small-scale chocolate bean to bar process, from roasting the bean to the finished chocolate. Once we tasted that example of chocolate, we couldn’t quite believe how good it was and, on returning from the exhibition, using my father’s coffee roasters experience, we began to prepare cocoa beans before grinding to make our finest batch of chocolate. Encouraged by the results, a decision was made to invest into becoming an accredited chocolate maker. As we enter our fourth year, we say goodbye to our small chocolate workshop to move to larger newly equipped premises. The new site will allow us to further develop our range of handcrafted products made with love and incredible attention to detail by our small team of expert chocolatiers.

The Chocolate Factory

Back in 2015, we started our journey into making chocolate at our small site in Suffolk, using a coffee roaster and a household wet grinder. Heartened by the initial results, we later launched our chocolate range in three of our retail outlets in 2016.

To ensure continual improvement and innovation, we plan each year ahead accordingly. Our aim from the beginning and continues to be about bringing quality chocolate back to the consumer and to make it special - how chocolate should be - not be a product driven by accountant-led confectionery giants.

Most of the world’s ‘chocolate’ is loaded with sugar – flip over the next bar you see and check. At Harris & James, we do this a little different. Hence, our mantra for making chocolate has always been and always will be ‘More Quality Cacao, Less Sugar’. High quality cacao will always be our main ingredient, even in milk and white chocolate. At Harris & James,  this will never be compromised.