Life sweet in region for Hotel Chocolat

Group looks at new sites in picturesque locations

LUXURY CHOCOLATE maker Hotel Chocolat said its York, Beverley and Harrogate stores were star performers over the past year and performed “way better” than the company average.

Sales in Yorkshire have been so strong that the group is eyeing up picturesque locations in the region for new stores.

Angus Thirlwell, co-founder and chief executive of Hotel Chocolat, said: “We’ve got some real high-flying locations like the York Designer Outlet, Beverley and Harrogate, which we are really pleased with.”

He said the rediscovery of local high streets amid lockdown means Hotel Chocolat is keen to open in picturesque places where it is pleasurable to live. He singled out Ilkley, Skipton, Whitby and Scarborough as prime targets, describing them as thriving residential areas.

This will be an ambition for 2021 as the firm is keen to ride out the virus before it opens any new stores.

Mr Thirlwell said city centre locations like Leeds and Sheffield were more subdued as people are not returning to their offices.

“We are seeing a very encouraging picture overall in Yorkshire,” he said.

“The footfall is in places where people can drive to. People are also rediscovering their high street. It is very encouraging for when footfall comes back.”

He made the comments about Yorkshire as the firm announced that online sales leapt by over 200 per cent in April, May and June as customers switched to web sales whilst stores were in lockdown.

The firm said that all of its UK physical locations were closed for a period of 12 weeks from March 22 to June 15. This period coincided with Easter and Mother’s Day, two of the three biggest gifting seasons for the group.

The business said it was able to migrate a significant proportion of these sales to online. It added that the team demonstrated great agility by collecting Easter