Wonderland Chocolate

When Kate Necklen walked away from a 20-year marketing career – including senior roles at Unilever in London and Tourism New Zealand – it was to solve a problem she couldn't stop thinking about: why was there no truly delicious plant-based milk chocolate? She and her husband Scott had switched to a plant-based diet in 2020 and found the dairy-free chocolate options deeply disappointing. So she decided to make her own. Wonderland Chocolate launched from a small factory in Lyall Bay, Wellington, and Kate hasn't looked back since.

Wonderland turns heads before you've even opened the bar. The packaging is bold, joyful and instantly recognisable – and the chocolate inside is just as distinctive. Rather than using conventional dairy milk, Kate crafts her bean-to-bar chocolate with cashews, creating bars that are rich, creamy and completely plant-based without any compromise on flavour or indulgence. The cacao is sourced through ethical trading partners who ensure farmers receive a fair share of the value at every step. And the name? In the early 1900s, an amusement park called the Wonderland Adventure Park operated just down the road from where Kate started making her chocolate – a palace of pleasures that opened with the stated goal of turning Miramar into the mecca of merry makers. It felt like the perfect name for a fun, joyful chocolate brand. The park closed in 1912, but the spirit lives on in every bar.