How expanding its vegan range is helping Hotel Chocolat grow — with a little help from robots | Food and beverage industry

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Glossy tanks of molten chocolate stand on the factory floor as three production lines drizzle, cool, and fill the festive dessert into existence.

Production of the Hotel Chocolat Christmas range begins in June at his factory in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and ends several weeks before Christmas, when he turns to making Valentine’s Day and Easter dishes.

Christmas is by far the busiest time of the year for Hotel Chocolat, with sales easily eclipsing Easter, the traditional time for chocolate.

This year, robots took on a larger share of the work making peanut butter, jelly candies and dark chocolate fudges as the company grapples with mounting costs that have led it to report an annual loss this year, after plenty of time during the coronavirus. pandemic, when sales jumped by two-thirds over two years.

Melted chocolate is poured into a large metal bowl at the Hotel Chocolat factory in Huntingdon. Photography: Antonio Olmos

On one production line, workers in hair nets and white coats sprinkle Florentine bits and cookies into molds for Christmas wreath garlands. The process requires just six people, down from 36 previously, as the new robots lift chocolate from its molds using suction.

An extra tool will put the chocolates into the display box, which is a manual process currently to save more time and labor costs. This means that employees’ efforts can be focused on giving a hand-finished chocolate treat.

“We now have the scale and consistency in the ranges that we can use automation to become a smarter manufacturer,” says Angus Thirlwell, co-founder and CEO of Hotel Chocolat.

Doing so, he says, will help the brand resist passing the full pressure of price increases on raw components, energy, labor and transportation.

“We’ve moved out of a manufacturing environment where the challenge was: ‘Can we produce enough?'” So now, for the next year or two, focusing on: “How do we make [things] faster, reduce costs, revise and improve?. “

The Hotel Chocolat factory employs approximately 250 people across three shifts 24 hours a day, five days a week

He says the machine that places a pad of card over a finished box of chocolates, for example, paid for itself in just six months.

The Hotel Chocolat factory employs about 250 people across three shifts 24 hours a day, five days a week, with only a few extra agency staff required at peak times, thanks to automation.

Additional technology — and a possible expansion of the factory complex — could also help expand production to up to 1 billion chocolates annually from 300 million currently.

Along with machines, experienced people will continue to be an important part of the mix, says Ollie Hughes, who oversees the manufacturing plant, because they can quickly adapt to create new experimental products or seasonal twists on standard products.

The chocolate macaroons are filled by Hotel Chocolat workers in the factory. Photography: Antonio Olmos

One idea that is quickly gaining traction is vegan milk chocolate, as humans still have a major role to play.

On the fourth floor, divided from the rest of the factory so you have to change your footcloths, cap and white coat before entering, is a tangle of gleaming silver pipes and Willie-and-Nickies tanks where Hotel Chocolat creates its dairy-free alternative. Chocolate and hot chocolate chips. The area is separated to ensure that there is no contamination from dairy products.

Made with cocoa butter, hazelnut flour, caster sugar, soy lecithin and cocoa belcolade, nested together for several hours to form a liquid – ingredients are added gradually by hand. The nut milk chocolate can then be transported from Hotel Chocolat directly to the desired location around the factory.

White chocolate is added to Dapper Dogs at Hotel Chocolat. Photography: Antonio Olmos

It took five years to develop the recipe that was “creamy” enough to meet the demand for an excellent vegan alternative to milk chocolate.

Demand for vegan chocolate has skyrocketed, as some dairy lovers are keen to reduce their intake of milk-based products for environmental reasons. Hotel Chocolat produced six different types of vegan milk chocolate this year compared to just two last year.

Despite a difficult year, the company has achieved more than 10% growth in its “incredibly vegan” range of chocolates this year.

“You can see from the data that customers come back and rebuild once they get a taste of it,” Thirlwell said.

An aerial view of the grounds of the Hotel Chocolat factory in Huntingdon. Photography: Antonio Olmos

Automation has been important in meeting demand for Hotel Chocolat hot chocolate drink sachets—created for beverage maker Velvetiser—another fast-growing area.

Bag production began in 2019 with a herb grater modified to process hard chocolate to produce 5 million bags of chocolate chips per year. This process has been gradually improved up to 15m.

Now a new system produces wafers from tapered chocolate chips which are then cooled and divided into wafers by rollers capable of producing 55 million bags per year at present and, eventually, up to 180 metres.

Chocolate sandwiches are prepared and packaged on the Hotel Chocolat production line. Photography: Antonio Olmos

Then the automatic multi-slot rotary bagging machine ensures that each bag contains the right amount of chips and is sealed before being dispatched on each packet to be automatically placed into the 10 cartons in which it is sold.

The latest stage of automation is a machine that makes a packing box for six cartons and delivers the box to a pallet – which means 16 fewer people are needed in the packing process.

“The stereotype of our type of manufacturer is hordes of low-paid people doing menial work,” says Thirlwell, adding that technology allows her to focus on better-paying full-time roles with people who can adapt quickly to help test new ideas instead. than spending time making boxes.

“We had the opportunity as a British manufacturer to take it to the next level,” he says.

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