Hotel Chocolat looks to high street stores ahead of phased reopening

Co-founder and chief executive of Hotel Chocolat Angus Thirlwell said the retailer would open five or six stores next week as takeaway cafes, as part of a trial phased reopening of its estate.

Thirlwell said the locations would be predominantly in London and other “thriving communities”, and would have a limited offering of products, such as ice creams and milkshakes.

“We’ll open some stores as takeaway cafes, not chocolate shops. We’re opening up five or six locations next week to get a read on how our planned safe way of working actually performs in real life,” he said.

“Then we can hone that model so that, when we get to the following week, we’ll have the learnings of how to operate.”

While Thirlwell said any measures would be led by government advice, he laid out the retailer’s phased plan for a reopening of its estate.

He identified high street and independent self-standing stores as the first Hotel Chocolat sites that would reopen, with stores in transit hubs and shopping centres likely to be the last.

“When we’re given the green light, we can swing into action, but we want to be as ready as we can possibly be. What we’ve modelled is that some locations will be more complicated than others to reopen,” he said.

“So, for example, in mass transit locations like train stations, there’s a lot of things to consider. They’re probably the last ones to reopen. Along with big shopping centres as well, there’s a lot of moving there for the mall operators to get in place first.

“We’re going to start off with classic high street and independent self-standing locations in communities where they want us to open, we want to open and where we’re allowed to be open and can do it safely.”

Despite its store estate being closed during the crucial Easter trading period, Thirlwell said he’d been very encouraged by the performance of Hotel Chocolat’s ecommerce business.

He said the bulk of lost revenue for the period came from the lack of everyday “drop-in” business that only stores can generate.