Bars first. Bottles by accident. Now mostly bottles, if we’re honest. Plant-based since 2018.
Two recipes. One oven. One cow joke that wouldn’t die.
We were making plant-based bars at home because the supermarket versions tasted apologetic. Friends asked for some. Then friends of friends. Then we ran out of friends. The kitchen ran out of space first.
The name Dirty Cow was a placeholder. It stuck because it made everyone laugh, including us, and we didn’t have the energy to come up with another one.
Still small. Still topping every bar by hand.
People kept buying the bars. The kitchen lost. We moved into a factory, kept the recipes exactly the same, and hired people who care almost too much. Every bar still gets its top finished by a human, which sounds like a marketing line but is mostly because we’ve tried machines and they aren’t as good at it.
Sixteen months on the new recipe. That isn’t a slogan either — it’s how long the 2025 relaunch took us to be happy with. Creamier, smoother, 90% less packaging. We took our time.
The trick is hazelnut paste, not chemistry.
People taste the bar and ask how it’s creamy without dairy. The answer is hazelnut paste, folded in until it forgets it was a nut. The cream liqueurs use the same idea. We’re not chemists. We just stir.
If you’re plant-based, this should taste like the chocolate you remember. If you’re not, it should taste like chocolate you’ve never had to label.
Cocoa is up 240%. The recipe didn’t change.
We could’ve cut the cocoa, swapped the hazelnut for something cheaper, used vague flavour syrups. We didn’t. We made fewer bars and asked our regulars first, and they were patient with us.
£3.99 is the cost of doing it properly at our size. If we get bigger, the price might come down. If cocoa keeps climbing, we’ll keep absorbing what we can.
Multi-award-winning bars and bottles. We’re as surprised as you. The judges keep coming back.
Since 2018, before the supermarket aisle existed. Not a virtue. A starting point. The recipes are better this way.
Every bar topped by a person, not a machine. We’ve tried machines. They’re worse at the toppings and they don’t laugh at the cow joke.
Cocoa’s up 240%. We made fewer bars. The recipe stayed. We’d rather make less than make worse.
All our bars. All our bottles. We’re as surprised as you!
Started small in a kitchen. Outgrew it. The factory came when people kept buying. The recipes never changed.
Plant-based, vegan, dairy-free and virtuous-ish since 2018.