James Cadbury on Love Cocoa’s limited edition summer bars
21 Jul 2021 | Love Cocoa
James Cadbury, a descendant of the Cadbury family, speaks to FoodIngredientsFirst about the launch of Love Cocoa’s limited edition summer bars. The brand has added Mint Chocolate Chip, Sour Cherry & Strawberry and Rose Pistachio to its portfolio. Cadbury also discusses the company’s latest developments and how these chocolate bar flavors represent summertime.
This is Nicole Kerr reporting for Food ingredients.
First, I am joined today by the founder of Love Coco, James Cadbury, a descendant of the famous chocolate family.
Hi, James.
Let's get straight into it.
Please tell us more about your limited summer edition chocolate bars.
Oh yeah.
I think that what inspired us was we saw a bit of a gap in the market.
Most people, in the chocolate industry are really sort of focused on, you know, Christmas, Easter.
I think it sort of gets a little bit forgotten, about, that, you know, chocolate's still, you know, to be enjoyed over the, the summer months, especially in the UK where, where we're from, where the weather's not always quite as nice as, mainland.
Europe and everywhere else in the world, so it's, you know, a real opportunity, to, to be able to launch something which we think would get a bit of traction during months which are, you know, a bit slower for us where, you know, revenue's down just because people are eating less chocolate, so we wanted to come up with some, you know, really sort of fruity flavors and chocolate that you can also put in the fridge, which, you know, tastes quite good when it's chilled.
Great.
And how will this limited range impact the company's progress in the foreseeable future?
I think it's just, you know, a really a good addition to, to our portfolio of products.
When we launched a business such as our 5th year birthday today, which is amazing, and, when, when we launched 5 years ago, we had, I think 4 or I think it was 6 skews, and I sort of, you know, really just wanted to do 6 skews, and I suddenly realized being a, you know, a gifting product, of self-treating, where you really wanna have something a bit special, you, you just want something, you know, lots of people want something different, and they want to try lots of different flavors.
And, you know, this is just an additional, you know, season we're trying to build into, into our, our year.
So obviously, you know, Christmas and Easter are still our biggest, and we've got things like Valentine's Day where we, you know, do really , and we just wanted to really add one more, season, so this is our first year of doing a summer range, and, and it starts with 33 chocolate bars.
If it goes , and so far the sales have been really positive, then we'll be looking to extend that range, next year.
And were there any research and development challenges in developing the Summer range?
And how were these overcome?
Yeah, so we, we had a lot of iteration and you, you know, really wanted to get, you know, really some flavors, so we, you know, as a company, we, we've got a really good, online following, a lot of, you know, really strong D2C part of our website, so we really, really know our customers very , and we know what they like, what, what flavors they like, so we did a, , like a survey with, with some of our most important VIP customers, and we, we, we tried a few different flavors with them, we, we sent out actually sent out some samples to, to some of our best, , our customers, I got really got their feedback, so we, we used that, to overcome sort of getting the right flavor balances and, you know, I think for us it was just really getting those some of the flavors which, people want.
So for example we've got a, a mint choc chip, sorry, a mint choc chip, which is white chocolate with mint, and it sort of replicates that, , that ice cream flavor which is really popular in the UK, and we sort of got, got, got lots of feedback from our customers for products like that really.
OK.
And also, what can we expect to see next?
Are you, for example, producing a winter edition?
Yeah, so we, we always have a, you know, a pretty strong, Christmas, collection.
However, yeah, we, it's something we're looking at, there's seasons like Halloween, which are, you know, massive in, in, in America, which is a huge confectory buying time of the year, so we're looking to develop something for that.
We, for, for sort of Christmas and for the winter.
This year we've, we've launched a new chocolate truffles, sorry, chocolate truffles, which are a gingerbread flavor, sort of give that winter sort of nice spice, you know, perfect for when the evenings get a bit longer and the, the days get a bit shorter, you know, perfect to, to sort of go home and to, to have those sort of things.
And you mentioned that for the summer edition you surveyed the customers.
Could you maybe tell us a bit more about how these flavors actually represent summertime?
Yeah, sure, so yeah, we, we, we sent out, I think it's over 1212 different options to customers to try and understand.
What reminded them of, of summer, what sort of flavors they were, were, they were looking for, and off the back of that, the, I think it's out of the, the three we've gone with, I think they were all in the sort of top 4 favorites.
So we, we have, a lovely white chocolate with, with rose and pistachio, I think rose is, is, is great flavor and it's, it's, it's definitely reminds people of the summer when they're, you know, out in the garden and you know, in the parks more often, so that was, that was one flavor we're using and it looks really, Really pretty, with the almonds on top, then we've got a, as I said before, a, a mint choc chip, which is a replica of the, the ice cream, so it's a real strong link to, to something that, consumers are already aware of for Christmas, so for, for the summer with, with ice cream.
And then we've got a, a, a dark vegan chocolate, with strawberry and cherry which is again those sort of those fruity summer flavors, which, you know, you know, reminds people of, of the summer, and when they're out and about and you know having delicious fruits, so we, we wanted to keep one which was vegan, so for that reason.
We've got the dark chocolate, and sort of sprinkled those, dried fruits on top and, you know, that's been our most popular so far, I think there's a, you know, huge, drive towards, veganism, we've actually set up a, a new, sister brand called Hip Chocolate, which is, made, it's like a milk, vegan chocolate, so rather than using dairy, it uses oat milk, I've just launched that as because we just see a huge, you know, demand for these vegan products.
OK.
And LAV Coco also experienced a 150% growth in the last year despite the COVID-19 global pandemic.
And what do you think are some reasons for this rapid growth, James?
I think it's, we've always been, sort of focused on B2C.
It's always been, you know, a really strong part of our, our business model when I, when I launched the business back, 5 years ago.
We're we went for the first year we're predominantly only available online and we really wanted to.
You know, do that because we want to get customers feedback, we don't, we don't want to be in reliant on, you know, being in stores where, you know, buyers change and, you know, things can change and which are out of your control really.
So, you know, DTC has always been a huge part of the business, so when the, the pandemic hit, we sort of all went all in with, with, with that, and we, you know, rather than reducing headcount and, market budgets, we, we actually increased them and, really went for it, and we managed to grow a lot of online, we, We also created lots of specific products for, for, for people for working from home or for gifting to family and friends, so we had lots of, you know, we developed lots of hamper products which were filled with all our chocolates which were we I think we called them virtual hugs and and stuff like that.
So being, you know, still a small company, we, we were able to be nimble and, you know, quickly, get these products out online, I think that was one of the reasons as as.
You know, we've been here 5 years now, we've got a, a pretty strong email list, so we've, we've got a lot of loyal customers, so we sort of tapped into to to those guys who were looking for, you know, indulgence themselves or sending, you know, a nice gift for someone over, over lockdown.
Thank you.
And were there any flavors that did better during the pandemic?
I think it's, yeah, the, the indulgent ones, so all our truffle products were, you know, really, really popular, you know, salted caramels, it's been a long-term favorite of ours, but that even sort of grew over in, in popularity over, over the, the pandemic, and, yeah, I think there was a real shift for people to, to be really wanting to indulge and to, to treat themselves where.
You know, the world's a bit of a crazy place and it's, you know, it's that 5 minutes of having some nice chocolate and being able to, sort of, break away from the world and have that, that bit of pleasure, so I think that was the, one of the, the key trends we, we saw over the last year.
And did the pandemic hinder any of the company's processes?
Yeah, yeah, there's, there's lots of hindrances with, you know, you know, the factories we work with, being, closed or having to close, and, you know, suppliers we work with not being able to get us product quick enough, that ranges from, you know, the raw chocolate, to packaging.
There's in the UK I think as as Europe, there's been quite a, a big issue with, you know, cardboard and the, the lack of supply of that, with, you know, lots of people shopping now online and being a huge, you know, demand for that, so.
There's all sorts of things like that which we had to cope, but we were, we were able to be nimble and you know, we, we've been growing our business quite, quite nicely over the five years and, you know, having more relationships with, with different suppliers of all sorts of, ingredients and, and packaging which allowed us to be able to really, be able to sort of continue and to, to not have huge issues, but yeah, like, like most people we, we did have a bit of a, bit of a few weeks where it was, you know, quite tough.
