The team at Henley Chocolates produce hand crafted artisan chocolate using real, ingredients sourced locally, and sustainably.
We met up with Sally Daniel, Company Director and Chief Chocolate Fairy, at their shop at Yew Tree Farm Shopping Village during our #Warksmas2021 campaign.
How long have you been trading here and what makes this area special?
We’ve been on this site since September 2016. I love this place - it’s a small community of friendly independent business owners and we share the ups and downs together. Not only that but it’s a stunningly beautiful place to work and a cracking job!
When were you established and how did the idea come about?
We started in December 2012 when my Chief Chocolate Taster Elliot was a baby. He’s now 10 years old and takes his role very seriously!
What are the reasons customers are attracted to you and keep coming back?
What we make is unique - the flavours are totally different from anything you can get elsewhere. We use real cream, real butter, real ingredients sourced from other artisans who are as passionate about our product as we are.
What is your most popular product/service you sell and why?
I’d love to say that it’s one of our award-winning truffles that we took years to develop or one of our bars infused with ingredients from our garden but no, our best seller by far and away online is chocolate dinosaurs closely followed by dinosaur eggs which have a real chocolate dinosaur inside, ready to hatch!
What new stock/service are you particularly excited about and why?
This time of year is all about sharing with your family. One of the things that upsets me most about the commercialisation of Christmas is the environmental impact. These last couple of years we’ve been working really hard to enable people to share our delicious chocolates without such a cost to our beautiful planet.
I’m really proud that we can finally offer fully single-use-plastic free chocolate selection boxes which can be popped straight in the recycling without compromising at all on flavour or freshness. In fact well more than half of our products are now packaged plastic free as standard and we’re working on the rest.
How has your business recovered since pandemic restrictions were lifted?
The pandemic was an incredible opportunity for us. As a small business we can be very flexible and diverse in our offering so we worked hard to develop our offering online. This has meant we can develop and structure our core offering better giving more room for us to bring out a regular offering of new flavours for our customers to try. Our chocolate fairies like nothing better than to have a good play with some new ingredients in the kitchen! Our door sales in the shop have obviously been affected but we’re working hard to rebuild customer confidence with click and collect, ventilation, masks and screens and Christmas is sure to help encourage people back in!
How important is the Christmas period for you?
HUGE! We are obviously a seasonal business but well more than half our annual turnover happens in the three months before Christmas.
If you could pick one item from your shop to gift to somebody this Christmas, what would it be and why?
I would choose to gift a selection of our truffle bags for people to try a few of some different flavours. They are noticeably different from your average supermarket offering and people always enjoy something a little bit special.
Why is it important for people to shop local?
Not only does your Christmas shopping help me to pay for gymnastics classes for my little boy but it also helps lots of other local families too as that’s where we source our ingredients from. There are no shareholders interested only in profit margin to the detriment of what we are doing. Our ingredients are chosen because they taste great and the prices are set to reflect that. The gifts that you will buy from your family and friends will be tastier, fresher and more unique. Without the support of our lovely customers we won’t be able to continue creating our chocolatey deliciousness - come, join in with your purchasing and be part of something genuinely special and unique. You can even see the chocolates being made - that’s how fresh they are.
What does Christmas mean to you and how will you celebrate it this year?
Christmas is a time for me to finally get to spend time with my family and catch up with my friends. I love to share food with people, to play games and go for long walks with our huge hairy hound! And to catch up on sleep after a few very long weeks.
In 2022, what one thing will your business be looking to implement to reduce your carbon footprint?
Since day one of opening our doors we have been on a journey to find the most sustainable way to run our business. We are continuing to remove single use plastics from our production and packaging, to find more local suppliers for our key ingredients and to grow the business to ensure that our sustainability goals can continue to be met. Our main challenge for this year in particular is to become entirely plastic free - I’d be delighted to hear if anyone knows of a good source of food-grade plastic-free gloves!