Hot chocolate firm has plans for shop in city

Knoops, a family-run hot chocolate brand that started life in East Sussex, plans to open a shop in Bath.

Its founder, Jens Knoop, has loved chocolate since he was a child growing up in rural Germany. In 2013, he decided to turn his love into a business by opening a cafe in Rye, his local town. Since then, Jens has travelled west, opening new stores as he goes.

There are now seven Knoops Chocolate shops in the UK – all of them in the South of England – and Bath will soon be home to number eight. A planning application to refurbish 21 Old Bond Street has been submitted to Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Knoops plans to spruce up the corner retail unit, a former Nationwide bank.

Knoops prides itself on “knoopology” – the process of picking each element that goes into your ‘luxury’ hot chocolate. Customers can choose one of ten different percentages of chocolate flakes, then pick their milk – dairy or plantbased – and add any extras, like sea salt or orange zest. The end result is a bespoke hot chocolate.