BITTER END FOR LUXURY WELSH CHOCOLATE FARM
ALUXURY craft chocolate company set up by an ambitious 23-year-old who once said he was “destined to make chocolate” has gone bust.
The company behind NomNom Chocolate, based in Carmarthenshire, went into liquidation on July 24, 2019.
Booth Insolvency confirmed it had been appointed as liquidators of Chocolate Farm Products Ltd at a meeting of creditors earlier in July. The company, which was formerly called NomNom Chocolate, is now being wound up.
Details of a meeting of creditors were reported in the London Gazette.
However, owner Liam Burgess told the Western Mail that the NomNom brand and chocolate “continue to exist and will continue to conquer the chocolate world once we are through the nightmare that has been the Pemberton factory”.
Just two years ago, he had announced plans to buy the abandoned Pemberton’s Chocolate Factory outside the village of Llanboidy and expand his fledgling business.
Mr Burgess was just 19 when he started his handmade chocolate
business in 2013 thanks to a £4,000 loan from the Prince’s Trust, initially working out of a caravan at the bottom of his mum’s garden.
In that first year, he made around 50,000 chocolate bars and things slowly took off.
In 2016, NomNom received Welsh taxpayers’ money to fly staff to a Madagascan cacao plantation to get a better understanding of the supply chain of the chocolate they made.
After production was moved to a neighbouring farm, the company expanded further by moving across the road to Bronyscawen - the site of the former Pemberton’s factory.
By this point the company employed 18 people and made 2,000 bars every day.
His unique flavour combinations, including bara brith and blueberry gin, gained a popular following and his bars even make their way into the hands of David Cameron in Number 10.
The long-term goal was to buy outright the former Pemberton’s site, yet that plan was never realised.
In February 2019, NomNom Chocolate changed its name to Chocolate Farm Projects Ltd with a registered address at Sentinel Accountants in Usk.
Today, the premises outside Llanboidy is deserted, with all outbuildings shut up and abandoned. NomNom’s social media accounts have not been updated or posted on since 2018.
At one point the company employed around 20 people, but according to one local man that had reduced to one by this summer.
The man, who did not wish to be named, told WalesOnline: “I think the writing was on the wall earlier this year. There were fewer and fewer people working there and things were being moved out of there.
“About a month ago I think they closed up entirely. There’s nobody there now.”
The entrance to the site is blocked off and a sign on one of the gates says ‘Sorry, closed’. This is permanently in place and the pink NomNom flags that once proudly flew above the gates have been taken down.
Another entrance is blocked off by traffic cones and a ‘No Entry’ sign.
The NomNom website still offers chocolate for sale. However, all telephone numbers at the former Llanboidy site have been disconnected and are no longer in use.
Mr Burgess said: “NomNom lives on as a chocolate and will carry on but the Chocolate Farm Project, which was anything to do with the whole Pemberton factory in Llanboidy, is no more.
“I cannot tell you what will happen next as that is sensitive.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We provided Jobs Growth Wales and apprenticeship support to NomNom Chocolate Ltd between 2014 and 2016 and the company fulfilled all commitments to staff and contractual obligations to us resulting from that investment.”