About us - Kilbeggan Handmade Chocolate

Kilbeggan Handmade chocolates are wholly unique because we make chocolate with our own beans in our own facilities. Our policy of fair-trade and sustainable manufacturing involves working closely with overseas partners in order to improve the lives of cocoa farming communities which leads to a better working environment and in turn a better product

“With handmade chocolate, there are so many things that can go wrong, but get it right and you have magic in the making,” as we say in Ireland. Our slogan, we make “Chocolate like it used to be” has defined our brand and a lot of our customers have remarked on the difference between us and other confectionery.

“Chocolate is very much like fine wine with very distinctive notes and those will be immediately evident to the chocolate connoisseur. Irish milk sourced locally is a big part of that experience and it’s an awful pity we can’t grow cocoa beans here as well, because Irish ingredients are the best in the World,” says Donegan. Transforming the imported cocoa bean and turning it into something uniquely Irish is a subtle blend of art and science. The extracted beans, called nibs, undergo a slow roasting process which produces an aromatic paste called chocolate liqueur. This liqueur is further refined for up to 60 hours and that is the essence of the bean-to-bar process. Producing chocolate of this quality is slow, painstaking work, but worth it, and we hope you’ll agree.