HALLOWEEN’S A TREAT FOR HOTEL CHOCOLAT
HOTEL Chocolat hopes to cash in on Halloween, with more Britons splashing out on it than ever before.
The chocolate company’s co-founder and chief executive Angus Thirlwell expects a 40 per cent surge around tomorrow’s celebrations, increasing Halloween revenue growth from about 30 per cent in previous years.
“When we first started investigating Halloween around 10 years ago, it was a much smaller event,” Mr Thirlwell said.
He said the focus was previously on low-quality chocolate for children without a real role for premium brands. But Hotel Chocolat has made “a big commitment” to build it up as a household event, with Halloween parties helping to drive sales.
Earlier this year it revealed a 12 per cent jump in revenues to £104.2million for the 52 weeks to June 25, on a constant currency basis.
It also reported a doubling of pre-tax profits from £5.6million to £11.2million for the last financial year.
Mr Thirlwell said Halloween was now “one of our fastest growing seasons”, and that it had started to rival revenues from the likes of Valentine’s Day.