Hotel Chocolat is sweet on a venture into beauty market
HOTEL Chocolat is preparing an assault on the beauty market, aiming to grow its range of body butters and bath oils through a start-up run by its chairman.
The company, which created cocoa beauty products for the spa on its Saint Lucia estate, has entered into a joint venture with Andrew Gerrie, who ran Lush Cosmestics for two decades before becoming Hotel Chocolat’s chairman in 2015.
Gerrie owns 49% of the venture, which will operate as a low-cost startup, while Hotel Chocolat has a 30% stake. The remainder is held by other parties.
Angus Thirlwell, the chocolatier’s co-founder and chief executive, said Gerrie will be funding and leading the effort, but the brand and the product formulations will come from Hotel Chocolat.
Thirlwell, who persuaded chefs in Saint Lucia to whip up the company’s first beauty products, said the company’s testing has proven there is demand for the “authentic” goods. He added that there could be more joint ventures in future. “It enables us to unleash something that’s a great idea to the rest of the world while continuing as a management team to focus on our core model. We might do more incubating of ideas.”
Hotel Chocolat’s first-half revenue rose 14% to £62.5 million after a strong Christmas helped by improved availability. Pre-tax profits jumped 28% to £11.2 million, and the company reiterated plans to pay a maiden final dividend.
@clarehutch