Hi everyone,

My name is Matthew and I’m the UK’s first Keto Chocolatier.

In 2016 after being hospitalised when a van pulled out on me, I was off work for several months (as a Chef) and I realised how close I had come to death. I decided to treat the rest of my life like a second chance and to sort myself out by properly pursuing a ketogenic diet. I managed to stop taking some very limiting medications, I started making high quality keto desserts, I improved my mental & physical health massively and I lost 8.5 stone (while eating ice cream and lemon tarts).

In 2019 I published a book full of keto dessert recipes.

That’s when I met an old neighbour from when I was at school.

Her daughter had been put on a ketogenic diet to reduce the hundreds of epileptic seizures she was having to just a handful a day.

We talked about keto food and I gave her a book.

I decided to make her an Easter egg so she could be included like all the other kids.

I bought some diabetic chocolate and a few other things and made my first Easter egg. It was pretty terrible really, I didn’t temper it right and the diabetic chocolate was pretty low quality.

Apparently she liked it though.

I decided I should learn how to make her a better egg for the next year.

That’s why I started making keto chocolate.

I improved it with every batch and started sharing it with friends and people I’d met online, and I didn’t charge a penny.

When lockdown happened, like a lot of other Chefs, I was treated very badly and ended up without a job, so even though hospitality was basically shut down, I decided I had to make myself a job. Many Chefs got jobs as delivery drivers and a lot of the rest started selling hot sauce. I decided to start selling my chocolate. I spent a bit more time tweaking recipes while I built a website and jumped through the many legal hoops and in December 2020 I sold my first keto chocolate bar on my shiny new website.

The refiner I was using is very noisy so I had to turn it off in the evenings so we could sleep. The noise in the day time was unfair on my wife too – who was working from home – so we decided that I needed to find a small industrial unit. The following April saw me get the keys for the little workshop I’m in right now.

I didn’t have much money so I started a GoFundMe and everyone’s kind donations raised enough to buy the steel benches, shelves and sinks that I needed to get started.

I have always based the business around a strong set of ethics. I only use cocoa with no child labour or modern slavery in its production chain, all my packaging is compostable and biodegradable, I use the standard food costing formula so that I don’t charge any more than I have to, and my sweetener & milk solids are all UK or EU sourced.

It has never been easy. Like everyone else my electricity costs quadrupled overnight, and then climate change caused massive shortfalls in cocoa harvests, so their prices quadrupled too (over a couple of months).

The business supports itself during the colder months, but in summer the sales drop off massively, while the cost of running air con and a storage fridge increases my electricity bill just as massively. Because of this I’ve been working a second job during the warmer parts of the year, and only having one day off each week. Unfortunately, now I’m having a lot of trouble with my legs, so to stop them getting any worse I’ve had to hand in my notice for the second job

I have been making small improvements since the first fundraiser, but I want to make some big changes now. My Environmental Health Officer wants me to have a separated office & packing space, and I really need to upgrade my air conditioner (plus I want to have a separated storage cupboard for cleaning equipment). I have managed to afford the wood to make that storage cupboard so that I can mount the air conditioner closer to the middle of the kitchen. I’ve got a bit more wood to build another stud wall to partition the unit for the separate office area, but I need to get another wood delivery to achieve this. I’ve also been buying PVC cladding to cover the walls and now it’s all starting to come together.

The stud wall cupboard has been a learning exercise so I can do the partition a bit better and I’ve certainly leaned a lot.

This is where you come in – your donations will pay for that extra wood I need to get the big wall done, plus all the bits and pieces I need to finish off the cladding.

If I get enough donations I also really need to replace the grinding stones in my refiners. It's supposed to take two days to refine a batch of my chocolate, but because my stones are so worn it takes between three and five, which obviously costs me more in electricity.

Check out my website:

https://www.sweetketochef.co.uk/

If you would like to follow my progress on social media then please do..

https://www.instagram.com/sweet_keto_chef/?__pwa=1

My most heartfelt thanks go to everyone who donated the first time round, and to everyone who supports my business in any way – every little like & share really does matter.

Thank you,

Matthew

**no raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways, or promotions are offered in exchange for any donations made to my GoFundMe**