Hotel Chocolat expands in Yorkshire following strong demand for its luxury chocolate

Yorkshire demand for Hotel Chocolat’s luxury chocolate is so strong that the firm has moved to a new store in Harrogate that has quadrupled its size.

Angus Thirlwell, co-founder and chief executive of Hotel Chocolat, said: “We have seen strong demand from Yorkshire customers across the board. Both online and store channels are performing really well in Yorkshire.

“We selected Yorkshire to have one of the very few upgrades that we did last year. We’ve quadrupled the size of our Harrogate store which was on the prime street in Harrogate (James Street) and we’ve moved across the road. That’s a vote of confidence in Yorkshire if I’ve ever heard it.”

He said that Harrogate has always been a top performer and that a lot of its customers wanted to see the full Hotel Chocolat range.

Hotel Chocolat said that revenue in the 13 weeks to December 26 leapt 37 per cent and was up by 63 per cent cent compared with the run up to Christmas in 2020.

New customer acquisition campaigns resulted in 38 per cent more active customers.

The firm said that trading throughout the run up to Christmas has been encouraging and the board now expects trading to be marginally ahead of management’s expectations for the current financial year.

Mr Thirlwell said: “These results demonstrate that the Hotel Chocolat brand is connecting with more customers, as we invest continually in new product creativity, driving growth across channels and categories, and in our ‘gentle farming’ initiative supporting cacao-farming families.

“All of our six growth drivers are behind the acceleration in sales: Velvetiser in-home drinks system, VIP loyalty rewards, and digital, whilst the USA, global wholesale, and the Japan joint venture are finding the formula for sustained growth, and our UK domestic market still has huge potential.

“Our Velvetiser in-home drinks system was a star performer during the period. The majority of our subscription customers are now coming from our popular hot chocolate and coffee machines and drinks. We invested in refreshing our key chocolate gift ranges in the period and that resulted in an immediate and strong uplift in sales, particularly the higher price point categories.

“We are incredibly grateful to both our new and long-established direct customers who support us and there’s been an exceptional team effort from the worldwide Hotel Chocolat family, who made these results happen, whilst always upholding our Hotel Chocolat values.”