Upmarket chocolatier Hotel Chocolat is mulling the launch of beauty products as it enters the European market for the first time.
The chocolatier is considering expanding outside its core confectionery specialisation by bottling the “lotions and potions” it creates for hotel guests at its St Lucia estate and selling them in-store.
Hotel Chocolat chief executive Angus Thirlwell said that plans for the range are “embryonic”, but said products would be aligned to its ethical and upmarket brand values, and would be made using ingredients grown on its 140-acre estate.
Thirlwell said a beauty product offer would be a natural fit for Hotel Chocolat. Items could include cocoa butter-based treatments including moisturisers.
He said: “We can move into related, adjacent fields in a very short space of time if we can see there is a continuity with the brand and the use of cocoa.”
The retailer, which has 62 UK stores as well as two in the US, is to launch into mainland Europe for the first time with two stores in Amsterdam and Copenhagen in the next few months.
The 1,200 sq ft Dutch store will open first at the end of March with the Danish store to follow in June.
Thirlwell said the retailer has interest in a number of markets in northern Europe and would consider further expansion.
The 2,000 sq ft Copenhagen store will evolve the Roast + Conch concept developed at the new Covent Garden store.
The central London store uses cocoa beans grown by the retailer to create sweet and savoury snacks alongside retailing chocolate.
Thirwell said the retailer will focus on a “deepening of the brand” in the UK.
He said: “We feel that we have developed a good reputation. It’s about continuing to deepen that, rather than spreading it too thinly. We are going to enrich our offer in the UK. “
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