Sweet profits from unusual chocolate
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Senior Writer
Jody Clarke May 08, 2009
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Being the owner of a £5m-a-year business, Helen Pattinson, 38, brings her work home quite a lot. But as for the chocolate that she and husband Simon, 42, put on their stores' shelves, that stays firmly where it is. "We have two small children who would happily eat their way through our whole product range given the chance," says the co-founder of specialist chocolate-maker Montezuma's.
Pattinson was a corporate lawyer in London when she and Simon got the urge to up sticks in 1999. Earning £120,000 between them, "the money was good, but it was just glorified pen pushing". So they sold their house in Putney, and swapped the corporate jungle for South America, where they came across the town of San Carlos de Bariloche, near the Argentinean Lake District.
Founded by German migrants, it was served by ten different chocolate shops. "It was amazing that somewhere so small in the middle of South America could sustain so many chocolate shops." The chocolate was out of its packaging and on display, while the shop assistants played with different recipes in front of customers. "It was such a fun atmosphere. We thought, why can't we sustain something like this in the UK?"
Back home, they cajoled £100,000 from friends and family to set up their own chocolate firm. With a shop on Duke Street in Brighton, a pedestrianised area that runs from the shopping centre to the city's famous Lanes district, the plan was to buy chocolate from small producers around the UK. They would then repackage it as their own branded item. But eight weeks before opening, their main supplier went bust. "We had to decide over night that we would make the chocolate ourselves." It was the making of the business. "Half of our turnover now comes from selling through other retailers, which we would not have been able to do if we were just a branding exercise."
Spending £20,000 on a melting tank and tempering machine, they rented a converted stable in Chichester. They spent the next few weeks experimenting with ingredients and "throwing chocolate up the walls", delivering it each day in their Citroen Xsara to the store in Brighton, which opened in August 2000. They spent no money on advertising. "We just opened the doors and said we would see what happened". The trendy location helped – but the real draw was the chocolate. "We were selling real cocoa chocolate, not the sugary nonsense you get down in the newsagents. I think our customers like to think they are part of a pretty elite group, where they have found a pretty quirky product. It's very middle class, to be honest."
After 12 months they'd broken even on £200,000 sales. Sinking £50,000 into a second store, they opened in Chichester in 2002, and began selling in delis and department-store food halls across the country. Now available in Waitrose, the company's chocolate is also sold in 2,000 shops, generating sales of £5m a year from 250 tons of chocolate. Their own five stores are selling 14% more chocolate year on year, while trade sales across the UK are up 20%. "People always need a bit of luxury. Chocolate is such an appealing product. As long as you can display it in the right way, people just want to pick it up and eat it."
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