A south London based chocolate company is putting the fun back into dark chocolate as well as being “completely uncompromising on ethics”.

The company FATSO, which is based in Richmond, launched in March this year.

The bars are sold online at £5.95 each, but also feature in independent shops and cafes both locally and across the UK.

FATSO’s ethos is to produce dark chocolate that is ecologically sustainable as well as supporting communities in Columbia to improve their quality of life.

The bars have unique flavours and packaging designs to try and put a creative spin on dark chocolate.

Ella McKay, co-founder of FATSO, told Newsquest south London: “I’m a huge foodie, I love food.

“And a couple of kind of old colleagues and friends are also massive foodies.

“We love dark chocolate, love dark chocolate, always loved it, but we all have kind of marketing, branding and design backgrounds.

“We were thinking ‘why is the category so boring?’ it's just it takes itself super seriously.

“You've got milk chocolate sat next to you on the shelf being all like fun, playful, and exciting with interesting flavours – why is milk chocolate getting to have all the fun?

“We wanted to show that dark chocolate can we just have just as much fun as milk chocolate and something that was completely uncompromising on ethics.”

The bars that FATSO produces are extremely chucky and have their own flavour story written on the inside of each box, which has a stylish vintage design.

Each bar has its own unique theming which includes: “Nans Stash” which contains peanuts, toffee, and biscuits – this is a much richer bar with 70 per cent cacao.

“Mornin’ Glory” which tastes of toast and orange marmalade for a breakfast-themed bar.

And finally, “Home Run”, Ella’s favourite.

Ella, who has lived in Twickenham for more than six years, added: “Home run is our sort of ode to the classic baseball snack.

“So that's salted pretzel, whole almonds and honey cane.

“This is probably my personal favourite – I cannot keep a bar open for very long at all.

“The main thing was we wanted to create something that is a really chunky bar that feels abundant pack it full of inclusions, you know big hole pieces - we wanted it to have actual real stuff in it.”

FATSO sources their cocoa from a family-run business called Luker’s Farm in Colombia.

Luker’s Farm is also the Founders of The Chocolate Dream, an initiative that ensures sustainable development in the cocoa territories.

From improving farmer income, strengthening the social wellbeing of local communities, and maintaining an environmental balance in coca growing communities.

Every FATSO bar bought provides funds that go towards projects in Colombia such as improving access to education to creating access to safe drinking water in villages.

Ella explained: “In the industry in general is there's so much corruption, so it such a difficult category to navigate from an ethical standpoint so it was absolutely important that we got that bit right.”

“Luker and The Chocolate Dream work with lots of different partners across Colombia, and they make sure that everything's grown and managed and run properly but they also wanted to really promote and breathe community back into the rural areas of Colombia.

“Obviously, one of the barriers to that historically there was a lot of corruption, not just in chocolate.

“You'd get a lot of younger people therefore moving to the cities, or there'd be people that didn't have education and then wouldn't be able to live prosperously.

“So the chocolate dream is basically all about using chocolate growing and chocolate manufacturing as a means to create a better life for Colombians.”

You can buy FATSO dark chocolate bars at https://sofatso.com/.