Hotel Chocolate is a British cocoa grower and chocolatier that started as a catalog seller, began adding stores and now wants to further expand. So it needs financing. So it's issuing bonds in return for capital contributions. But there's a difference: The Hotel Chocolate bonds don't pay cash interest. They pay in chocolate. Buy a bond for 4,000 pounds sterling and you'll get a shipment of 13 boxes of chocolate per year, worth 233.35 pounds, the company says.

That's a 5.83 percent return. Tax free! Hotel Chocolate says it will pay taxes due on the interest to Revenue & Customs for basic-rate taxpayers. (The toffs in the higher brackets will have to look after themselves.)

The company says it wants to "let some of our best customers participate in the business and give them the benefits, rather than handing it over to a big bank." Of course, chocolate bonds should also generate great publicity. And they're real bonds. Although they won't trade on a market, the securities have a real prospectus with fine print generated by genuine lawyers and filed with the British version of the SEC. The bonds are callable anytime, but investors have to commit for three years. From the prospectus:

Chocolate Return which has accrued but has not been dispatched will be available, at the Bondholder's request, for dispatch following the redemption of the Chocolate Bond, for one year following the relevant repayment date.