Sweet dreams come true at Royal Welsh Show
Meet the couple who left the rat race and their stressful jobs in London behind to start a chocolate factory in Wales. Laura Clements speaks to the confectioners who have made a delicious difference to their lives
If giving up a stressful corporate job in London to set up a chocolate factory in deepest west Wales sounds like the ultimate dream, then that’s because it is.
Karen Owen and husband Mark, who have two young children, were both working for BT in London, when they decided to swap phones for chocolate and start Wickedly Welsh chocolate.
It was a big jump into the unknown, but one that paid off, the couple said.
Now, five years after they opened the doors to the Wickedly Welsh Chocolate factory in Haverfordwest, Mark says he has not worked a stressful day since he left “corporate land”.
Mark said: “Whereas before, as an engineer, I was very focused on fixing problems, which carried a lot of stress with it, now there is pressure which is different – it’s very motivating for me.”
Every day of the week Mark works with chocolate, a soothing process which he compares to having a “warm bath” or “kicking back with a glass of wine”.
Mark said: “Chocolate is a fantastic material to work with.
“I get to play with the stuff – you can apply the same principles of working with metals as you can working with chocolate, except that everything is at a much lower temperature.
“Through the day, the chocolate will get thicker, so at night we destress the chocolate by heating it to 48 degrees. At that point, the chocolate
is just kicking back with a glass of wine, or relaxing in a mud bath.”
It is only thanks to his wife, Karen, that Mark gets to play with chocolate as his job.
Karen, who was “born and bred” in the Carmarthenshire village of Llanboidy, started off working at the nearby Pembertons Chocolate Factory aged 18, during her university holidays.
The Aberystwyth University geography student would come home and pick up where she left off, making chocolate and running demonstrations for visitors to the popular attraction.
Eventually, though, after graduating, she decided it was time to get a “proper job” and found herself on the BT graduate scheme in London.
As she progressed in a 15-year career with BT and climbed the corporate ladder, meeting and marrying Mark in the process, her homeland started calling.
One weekend, Karen’s mum in Llanboidy casually asked Karen and Mark if they had heard about Pembertons being for sale.
They hadn’t, but Karen’s mum had planted a seed and the couple decided to take a look.
“Karen had been banging on about chocolate for years and I thought she was a bit mad,” said Mark.
By now, Karen and Mark had two children, Matt, aged five, and Anna, three.
Bringing them up in the country seemed more appealing than their busy corporate lives, hours of commuting and extortionate childcare.
Over 18 months the pair tried to wrangle a deal with the owner of Pembertons, but couldn’t get the numbers to stack up.
Certain they wanted to move to
We were doing well in corporate land, but this is better... a little bit of everything is good for you MARK AND KAREN OWEN
the country regardless, they ditched the Pembertons option but signed Matt up to a school in Pembrokeshire anyway.
“Karen said, ‘shall we move anyway and just take the plunge?’ and so we moved to Llanddewi Velfrey,” said Mark.
Weeks later, in November 2013, they found an old industrial unit in Haverfordwest and set about creating their own chocolate factory from scratch.
Then their third child, Lauren, was born.
Karen found she could still make chocolate, Mark soon learned, and they recruited four staff who had all worked at Pembertons before it closed.
They opened their factory doors for the first time on April 12, 2014.
Ever since, they have been creating quality chocolate using locally sourced ingredients as much as possible.
The salted milk chocolate bars use Welsh salt from Halen Mon, the whisky-flavoured bar uses Penderyn whisky.
They sell their chocolates at London’s Fortnum and Mason, the Celtic Manor, Royal Ascot and even the Principality Stadium.
“We’ve never worked so hard for so little,” said Karen, who quickly added that the family’s quality of life had improved massively since they took the plunge.
“We are in control of our own destiny now.
“We don’t have to farm the kids out because we are so busy – we can both go and pick them up from school now, or watch their school sports days.”
“We started with no order book – the challenge at first was to get orders before the bank of Karen and Mark ran out,” added Mark.
Both say their experience in the marketing and corporate world helped massively in generating business and growing their orders.
They have just struck a deal with a company which will see them exporting to Iran.
“We were doing well in corporate land,” said Mark, “but this is better.”
Both Karen and Mark ultimately decide which flavours make the cut, although Karen has the final say, she said.
“There are only nine of us in the business, and we know who has a sweet tooth and more of a savoury one,” said Karen.
“Mark is more into his herbs and he experimented with rosemary and thyme once – but he went too far and it ended up tasting more like a Christmas dinner.”
Needless to say, it didn’t make the cut.
Both are fussy about chocolate, they said, and all three of their children have sophisticated palates.
“I believe a little bit of everything is good for you,” said Karen, “but when it comes to chocolate, make sure it’s the good stuff.”
Matt, now 10, has his own favourite: the chilli and lime flavour, which is one of their best sellers for summer 2019.
Things are going well for the business, Mark added, but Brexit would affect things as much as anyone else in Wales.
“The price of chocolate will go up by 18% with a no-deal Brexit,” he said, “and that’s just the chocolate.”