Hotel Chocolat's Very British Brand

Now that the UK-based Hotel Chocolat has gone public, it has additional resources to support an expansion strategy. The company began as an online retailer of luxury chocolate gifts, targeting UK consumers and businesses.

A decade after establishing itself on the web, it opened a physical store. Now the company has more than 80 shops across the UK plus an actual hotel adjacent to a cocoa plantation on Saint Lucia.

At one time, Hotel Chocolat had a handful of US stores but closed them a couple of years ago. It retains its online presence selling to US customers, however.

Eyeing another round of international retail expansion, Hotel Chocolat has a franchise presence on Gibraltar and is also opening company-owned chocolate boutiques in Copenhagen to assess the opportunities for this very British brand.

Hotel Chocolat has more than 100k likes on Facebook, 52k followers on Twitter, and more than 3k followers on Pinterest, among other social media activities.

Flavored by Fleur de Sel

For the sample marketing plan in my "Essential Guide to Marketing Planning," I created a company that markets luxury chocolates, including one type of chocolate with a light sprinkling of fleur de sel.

Now desserts (chocolates, caramel, etc) garnished with expensive specialty salt have burst into the mainstream (see NY Times article) because the intense flavor adds an unexpected but welcome finishing touch. Happy new year!

clipped from www.nytimes.com How Caramel Developed a Taste for Salt clipped from www.amazon.com