Hotel Chocolat, the UK retailer that has built up a substantial war chest through conducting recent share sales, plans to invest a part of that money into expanding its production capacity.
140 new full-time employees will be hired by the company to work at the company’s manufacturing plant in Huntingdon, which will be transformed into a 195,000 square foot facility from the existing 45,000 square feet. With 275 employees currently, this represents a significant increase.
A wide range of job positions, including chocolate technicians, are on the company’s hiring list, and it expects to finish building the new facilities by 2026
Ollie Hughes, site manufacturing manager at Hotel Chocolat said:
Hotel Chocolat is on an exciting journey so we are heavily investing in our Huntingdon site to make it the ‘centre of excellence’ for chocolate production.
Hughes continues:
It will look remarkably different as it evolves over the next five years, and we are over the moon to be boosting the local job economy at the same time.
The company has stated that it wants to be the dominant player in selling chocolate online in a strategy shift away from retail after the impact of the pandemic on the retail landscape.
A better-than-expected financial performance has been forecast by the company, largely attributable to strong sales in the US and Japan. In June, the company posted their annual earnings showing a leap in revenues of 21 percent to £165m (USD$ 226m)
