Hotel Chocolat: Chocolate business tasting success

by JOHN KRALEVICH - 08/06/2011

"IT is one thing to taste chocolate and thoroughly enjoy it; it is quite another to appreciate the extent of its popularity."

So it was when I first sampled Hotel Chocolat fare and proclaimed them the best chocolates in the UK, perhaps even on a par with the best of Belgian and Swiss chocolates. Then in December last year I found out that Hotel Chocolat had topped the top 100 lines sold in one week at the John Lewis Peterborough store, where there is a concession.

It was an indicator of strong brand recognition and telltale signs of an expanding business. Its manufacturing site, at Hadley Park in Redwongs Way, Huntingdon, employs about 200 people which, when coupled with a distribution centre and call centre in the region, and boutiques in most major cities in the UK, adds up to almost 750 staff.

Hotel Chocolat opened another 10 shops, creating 50 jobs in 2010 to see the business grow 13 per cent from a turnover of £53 million to £60 million in the current year.

Huntingdon provided an ideal site for the company to invest in, as it provided a good communications network, a good local workforce and was suitable for expansion when it was established five years ago.

But as Peter Harris, finance director and co-founder of the company with CEO Angus Thirlwell, explained, it was the innovation and individuality of the business that gave it strength.

“Whereas many manufacturers were leaving the country for, say, Eastern Europe and South Asia, we were unusual in investing £4 million in the manufacturing plant,” said Peter. “We believed that local investment would give us agility and better security for the future.”

The company – a privately-funded enterprise – has recently raised £4 million through a Chocolate Bond. It doesn’t pay interest on the money borrowed, it pays in chocolates. It is this funding that has been invested in the Huntingdon factory, its shops, its export markets and development of its own 140-acre cocoa estate in St Lucia.

It’s not only the UK that has benefited from Hotel Chocolat’s luxury chocolates as the company has set up a pilot store in Boston, USA and opened four boutiques in the Middle East. It has ambitions to expand into more overseas markets, with taste tests currently on the menu in Scandinavia and the USA.

As a British-owned cocoa grower and chocolatier, Hotel Chocolat remains true to its three core principles of authenticity, innovation and ethics.

Creativity is nurtured within the organisation and, as a result, all the products produced are exclusive to the brand.

It grows its own cocoa in St Lucia. Although not all its products are produced from this cocoa, it does make up many of the lines in the new groundbreaking Purist collection which showcases unseen grades of rare and vintage cocoa.

“Provenance of food products is so important, as it is with our chocolate,” said Peter.

Hotel Chocolat is the original pioneer of the ‘less sugar, more cocoa’ approach to recipes and the mantra is still strictly adhered to across the entire product range. This approach allows the true flavours to shine through, unimpeded by excessive amounts of sugar.

It is also a long-term and sustainable business. Given the disparity between those who enjoy fine chocolate and the subsistence cocoa growers who nurture the beans, Hotel Chocolat wanted to do something to make a difference, which led to it founding its own Engaged Ethics programme in 2002. Eight years and more later, this programme has gained considerable momentum and is delivering sustainable benefits to cocoa communities in both St Lucia and Ghana.

Another core and distinctive feature of the company is its direct relationship with its customers, either through mail order, the internet or the Tasting Club which Angus and Peter set up 10 years ago and which boasts about 100,000 members.

Hotel Chocolat continues to grow and to innovate.

Three years after launching as Hotel Chocolat, in 2004 it was voted Emerging Retailer of the Year by Retail Week. The following year it was awarded the top spot in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100.

In 2011, it took a dramatic step to share its world of cocoa with chocolate lovers with the opening of The Hotel Chocolat in St Lucia, a boutique hotel with The Boucan restaurant.

More Details: http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/business_2_17104/hotel_chocolat_chocolate_business_tasting_success_1_2750553