Our Story

It all started with a Curly Wurly.

When I was eight, I travelled to school on the Tube by myself. Every morning I’d get on at Finchley Road and head two stops to Swiss Cottage.

My parents gave me £1 each day. An 80p return ticket left me with exactly 20p to spend on the way home.

Every afternoon, without fail, I’d buy a Curly Wurly.

I still remember the excitement of walking into the corner shop, deciding whether to spend my 20p straight away or save it for tomorrow. Looking back, I don’t remember exactly how the chocolate tasted.

I remember the feeling.

And that’s the funny thing about chocolate.

The bars we grew up with became part of our lives. They remind us of childhood, holidays, parents, grandparents, first jobs and first loves. They’re never just chocolate.

They’re memories.

Recreating childhood favourites.

Years later, when we started Barnaby, we realised we didn’t want to invent strange new flavours.

We wanted to celebrate the ones we’d grown up loving.

Caramel.
Peanut.
Hazelnut.
Orange.
Malt.

Rather than copying the classics, we set out to create our own versions using better ingredients, made by chefs, in small batches.

Chocolate that felt familiar but tasted even better.

That was the beginning of Barnaby.

Then our customers changed the business.

Something unexpected happened.

People weren’t just buying our chocolate because it tasted good.

They were buying it for birthdays.

Anniversaries.
Weddings.
New babies.
Thank you gifts.
Graduations.

Customers kept sending us photos and telling us exactly the same thing.

“They didn’t stop talking about the message.”

That’s when we realised something.

The chocolate made people smile.

The story was what they remembered.

So we created Story Loops.

Instead of simply giving someone six chocolate bars, you can now tell them a story.

The first holiday.
The terrible first date.
The proposal.
The day you became parents.
The inside joke only the two of you understand.

Each personalised loop wraps around a chocolate bar, turning every bar into another chapter until the whole box tells a story.

No two boxes are ever the same.

Because no two relationships are.

Why chocolate?

People often ask why we chose chocolate.

For me, the answer is simple.

Whenever my dad was in the good books with my mum, he’d come home with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

Whenever he was in the bad books…

He’d also come home with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

It became our family’s little joke.

Years later, I don’t remember every present my parents ever gave each other.

I remember the chocolate.

That’s why I believe chocolate has always been about more than what you eat.

It’s about what it represents.

Looking ahead.

We’re still obsessed with making incredible chocolate.

But chocolate is now just the beginning.

Our ambition isn’t simply to make Britain’s favourite chocolate bars.

It’s to help people celebrate life’s biggest moments in a way that’s genuinely personal.

Because the gifts we treasure most are never really about what’s inside the box.

They’re about the story behind it.