Do you remember chocolates pre-2004? Tasty though they were, they were pretty standard and stuck in the past.

Ten years ago, Hotel Chocolat opened its first shop and swiftly gave the mass-market confectionary industry a kick up the backside.

National Chocolate Week kicks off on October 13, and Hotel Chocolat is surely worth celebrating.

Based on three promises – originality, authenticity and ethically – the brand has exploded, with 75 shops in the UK, more worldwide, two cafes and an actual hotel in St Lucia.

Co-founder Angus Thirwell told News Shopper: “Let's face it, [the industry] needed changing. Ten years ago, the chocolate scene in the UK and most other places was boring and low quality.”

Angus, who originally set up a company with Peter Harris selling mints in 1987, said they set out to ‘create a brand which would lead the market in fabulous, hedonistic, ethical British chocolate’.

In order to do that, Hotel Chocolat became one of very few chocolate makers to have their own plantation, the 250-year-old Rabot Estate in the Caribbean.

In keeping with the firm’s focus on being ethically responsible, Angus said: “Transforming the cocoa growers outlook in Saint Lucia is our best achievement in this field so far.”

It’s no mean feat, but it has also been done while constantly innovating with flavour and quality.
Angus said: “The brand name has an escapist edge which we try hard to deliver on. So far so good.”

He added: “As a true specialist we want to stay one step ahead of our most ardent fans.”

Central to the high quality which Hotel Chocolat focuses on is a maxim which Angus consistently returns to: more cocoa, less sugar.

As a standard, Hotel Chocolat’s house grade milk chocolate is 50 per cent cocoa and it’s white 36 per cent – both well above the average, giving more of a cocoa hit and making them healthier.

Angus said: “The secret is the melt - cocoa butter naturally melts at exactly mouth temperature. We are known for using rather a lot of it - more cocoa, less sugar.”

The company is taking that mantra one step further with its latest innovation, which could well have big repercussions for the chocolate industry, Supermilk, which Angus described as ‘a game-changing milk chocolate with less sugar than a dark bar and the most delicious taste.’

Go to hotelchocolat.com or find Hotel Chocolat stores in Bluewater or London Bridge and its cafe/restaurant Rabot 1745 at Borough Market.