‘Everyone loves it when I bring my chocolates’
Galia Orme, 50, lives in Hove, East Sussex, with her daughters Maia, 21, and Ella, 17. She runs a raw chocolate company.
‘Picking up the phone, I dialled the familiar number for John Lewis’s head office, just as I had every day for weeks. I was calling the head buyer, trying to get him to stock my chocolates. I was beginning to feel like a stalker, so each day I tried to leave funny messages or tell him a different fact about my business.
It took three months but my persistence paid off when the buyer finally agreed to meet, saying he’d never met anyone as determined as me! It’s true that I was passionate about my raw chocolate business. I’d first discovered this delicious treat in 2008 and instantly became hooked. Made with cacao butter, raw cacao powder and natural sweetener such as fruit syrup, it’s sugarand dairy-free, perfect for chocoholics like me. You can even add flavourings, such as hazelnuts or orange extract.
I bought a packet of raw cacao and learned how to make the chocolates. They were so easy, it became a Saturday morning ritual in our house with my kids helping me. When I took my chocolates to friends, the response was amazing.
Although I had a successful career in marketing, I was frustrated with the lack of flexibility and was longing to do the school run. I began to research starting a business selling chocolate-making kits, including baking cases and a recipe book.
I was so convinced that I had a good product, I quit my job six months later. I invested £5,000 of my savings into the business and took in a lodger and did freelance consultancy work to make ends meet. I bought enough ingredients to make 500 kits and put them together at my kitchen table, using packaging I bought wholesale. I designed a logo using a stencil and printed it onto stickers. My daughters helped me assemble the kits, and I paid a friend £100 to help me create a basic website.
After making just £5,000 in the first year, I realised I had to get the kits into shops – and that’s when I approached the John Lewis buyer, who agreed to stock my chocolates in the Oxford Street store in 2010.
FINDING SUCCESS
As sales increased, I rented a unit and hired local mums to help pack kits. A starter kit costs £12.95, a multi-kit with different flavours is £24.95 and a children’s kit is £10. By the end of the year I was stocked in 200 stores around the country.
These days my turnover is £400,000. I’m now stocked in Whole Foods in the UK and US, and I’ve outsourced all aspects of the business. I import the cacao myself from a Fairtrade farm in Ecuador, which is really important to me.
I still take a gift bag of my chocolates whenever I go to a dinner party and they always go down a storm. I’m very proud I’ve managed to turn my passion into a successful business.’ • chocchick.com