My World chocolate launch courts fantasy and fair trade

Pure Equator director David Rogers has embarked on an ambitious project to create his own chocolate brand, My World, which he aims to grow into a children’s lifestyle brand.

Rogers says he was driven by a concern that there’s a loss of innocence in children’s brands. ‘It’s a personal thing for my child,’ he says. ‘My World is about fantasy and naivety. It’s about getting rid of the influence of things like Power Rangers. It’s not about killing people.’

He adds that it is the responsibility of both consultancy and client to create ecologically conscious products. He says, ‘It’s partly up to design consultancies to be more responsible and completely up to clients; designers can only recommend so far. Companies are not prepared to meet the costs.’

The chocolate is made by Fairtrade-listed Browns, a Devon-based company, and Derby-based Winter Botham is distributing the products. The packaging has been produced by Bedford-based New Vision Packaging on recycled cardboard. Rogers says, ‘It wasn’t cheap, but everything is British-sourced.’

Rogers says he has used as little packaging as possible. He says, ‘We’ve used a minimum. Sometimes people should look less at branding and more at packaging’.

Rogers enlisted the help of children’s author and illustrator Lucy Loveheart for all packaging designs. He plans to make her a shareholder in the business.

The chocolate bars will hit the shelves in Waitrose in January 2009. My World will sell Easter eggs in the Co-op in the run-up to Easter.