When it comes to chocolate, the team at Pump Street are the quiet heroes behind the moulds. From classic flavours to innovative pairings, they’re the ones ensuring that our desserts are the perfect ending to any meal – no matter the cocoa percentage required.
This year, we’ve partnered closely to bring you our limited edition Easter egg: White Chocolate gives way to a Clementine Yolk, rolled in Chocolate Cake Crumb and finished with a shell of Pump Street 70% Dark Chocolate and Feuilletine for that all-important snap.
To mark our ongoing partnership, we sat down with Joanna, co-founder of Pump Street, to discuss sweet treats, sustainability and everything in between.
P.S A limited number of our Easter eggs remain across our pubs, with the exception of The Builders Arms. Available up to Easter weekend, as all good things should be.
Take us back to the beginning. How did Pump Street Chocolate first come to life?
Pump Street started as a shared dream between my father and me, of fresh sourdough bread and croissants baked daily in the village, made with only the best, unprocessed ingredients. My father baked for months for our local country market to test the waters, and it proved that there was huge demand. So we took the plunge and opened in 2010 – sourdough was not half as well-known then as it is now, and we loved introducing our customers to the simplicity and directness of bread baked from scratch within yards of home. We then wanted to have the same relationship with the chocolate we used as with our butter and flour, and that’s when we started to make our own chocolate, Pump Street Chocolate.
What first drew you to chocolate making, and what convinced you it was worth pursuing seriously?
The desire for flavour, transparency and ethics in chocolate was our mission; it wasn’t available for bakeries when we started, and craft chocolate for consumers was only in its infancy. But we could feel (and taste) the excitement for other craft makers, and we knew we could create something special.
If you could only eat one Pump Street Chocolate bar for the rest of your life, which would it be and why?
It would have to be the Sourdough and Sea Salt 66% bar because it was the first bar we made, which combined our baking and chocolate making, and it remains our bestseller. It’s not too sweet, malty, chocolate-y and very satisfying. And we make the whole thing from just cocoa beans, sugar, flour, water and salt.
As Pump Street has grown over the years, has the mission changed much or stayed reassuringly the same?
We initially set out to make something that would build a community of people as excited about bread as we were, and I think what’s come of that is an evolution of meeting the need that people have for connection between where their food was grown, how it was made and what it tastes like. And showing people that we can rebuild a food system that values people, communities and flavour from the ground up.
Your flavour combinations are wonderfully distinctive. Where does the inspiration usually begin?
Thank you! We draw from what we know, which is baking, as well as cocoa. When we create a new bar, like the Cinnamon Bun 60%, we take the flavours of the baked good that we make in-house, and we understand in great depth, and we match them with cocoa beans that we feel complement those flavours so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Behind every great chocolate bar is a team. Who are the people bringing Pump Street Chocolate to life day-to-day?
As a family business, our team and our approach to work have always been informed by mutual care and respect, balance and teamwork. From our Director of Operations, Di Wingfield, who has been with us for thirteen years, to new recruits joining our team in the café as their first job, we each play a role in making sure that we do justice to the ingredients and create experiences that bring joy to everyone.
And along the way, we have a lot of fun and get to be really proud of what we do. We also include our suppliers and the growers we work with, as well as shops and restaurants we work with, in our extended team; we wouldn’t be able to do it without them!
If you were to share just one Pump Street Chocolate recipe with the world, which would it be and why?
I often share our Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe because I feel it’s so much more than the sum of its parts; really simple ingredients, but made in a methodical way to achieve a great texture and flavour combination. I feel like that attention to detail is very much a signature of what we do. I’d say the same of our sourdough recipe and our croissants – but they are each harder to make at home!
Sustainability and ethical sourcing sit at the heart of what you do. What does that look like in the everyday running of Pump Street?
This is a great question. I think that running a sustainable and ethical business is a mindset rather than an activity; it has to inform every decision we make, from hiring to sourcing, to new product development, to operational decisions. It’s obvious in things like our commitment to traceability in our bean sourcing, and celebrating the farms we work with on the front of our packaging, but it’s also present in those smaller things like choosing paper for our chocolate wrapping, how we choose couriers to work with, and so many more each day.
You work closely with growers and producers around the world. Is there a particular origin or partnership that has changed the way you think about chocolate?
Yes, there are many! But one that comes to mind is our work with Desmond Jadusingh at Bachelor’s Hall in Jamaica. Desmond is an inspiration in his commitment to cocoa and the change he started in the Jamaican cocoa industry – he advocated for growers like himself to be able to sell cocoa beans from their own farms directly to consumers like us – opening the door to investment in quality and to the radical traceability to farm level that we are committed to.
As friends of Cubitt House, we have to ask. Do you have a favourite pudding from our kitchens?
Profiteroles!
Quick Fire Round
Dark chocolate. Love it or hate it?
LOVE IT!
Chocolate orange or mint chocolate?
Both! But in both cases, it has to be real orange or real mint.
The great cocoa debate: 70% or 85%?
Percentage, quality and flavour don’t correlate to me – so I like both, if made with good cocoa beans, and with skill!
Chocolate in the fridge or the cupboard?
Cool cupboard.
Chocolate for breakfast – perfectly acceptable or scandalous?
I eat chocolate at all times of the day!
Book Your Table
