About Us

Saunders Handcrafted Chocolates is a small, family-run business, founded in the summer of 2003. Our 'kitchen' and shop are within the Rheged Visitors Centre, set in stunning scenery near Penrith in Cumbria, and close to Ullswater. You can watch us at work, through an enormous viewing window, and see how we make our luxurious chocolates.

We are Bob and Jane and, after military careers, we set up our first business in 1996 with a successful French Café and Bakery which we sold to finance something closer to our hearts - and much more fun! And so 'Saunders', our very own chocolate company, was born. We learned our basic chocolate making techniques from an accomplished chocolatier - and then we spent 6 months refining the art. Three years on, we now have a range of 40 beautiful chocolates for you to choose from. Much of our time is spent on creating flavour combinations which not only sound fascinating but really work. We hope you'll enjoy browsing in our gallery.

Why Saunders? Well, there's a small island on the Western fringes of the Falkland Islands. It's home to a few humans, lots of sheep, elephant seals and rock hopper & king penguins. Months spent apart is not unusual for couples in the military but the RAF thought it would be fun to send us both to the Falklands for back-to-back tours of duty. We had a 4-day overlap which we spent, very happily, on Saunders Island. Visit our shop if you'd like a chocolate penguin!