S10: Building an ethical chocolate empire, with Angus Thirlwell, co-founder of Hotel Chocolat

Conversations of Inspiration

Holly Tucker MBE

Education, Society & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Business, Personal Journals

5.0 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2020

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As the son of the founder of Mr Whippy, perhaps Angus Thirlwell was always destined to build his own brand. But his path to success has not been without some hard won lessons and deep personal insight into his own motivation in life.

Angus’s vision for Hotel Chocolat has always been to not only reimagine an industry, but also bring back core values and purpose into the confectionary market at a time when the heritage of chocolate was being lost in the UK.

From innovative products and the best quality ingredients, to buying a plantation and reinvigorating cocoa farming in St Lucia, Hotel Chocolat stands out against the competition for all the right reasons.

Angus shares his story and talks of how diversifying his product led to success and how putting customers at the heart of the business has helped to cement the status of a truly remarkable brand.

Enjoying listening to these unfiltered chats? It's worth following Holly Tucker MBE and Holly & Co on Instagram, and subscribing to our weekly newsletter on our website, where Holly downloads her thoughts, and exclusively shares small business finds and topical, 'ungoogleable' business advice.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week I felt as though I'd won my very own golden ticket as I chatted to Mr.
0:05.2	Willy Wonker himself, Angus Thurlwell, founder of the brilliant and innovative Hotel Shockala.
0:11.8	I loved hearing his story brought to life from early childhood growing up in Barbados as part of a very entrepreneurial family to building a truly ethical business that's revived an entire plantation and its community in St Lucia.
0:26.9	As a self-confessed chocaholic, Angus's love of chocolate is as infectious as his understanding of what makes a brand special.
0:35.0	The magic touches and the confidence and intuition you need as a founder
0:39.5	when pushing and building your brand,
0:42.0	not only for the customer today, but for all in the future.
0:46.6	His letter to his younger self and the moment with his father and a prince, well it's actually
0:51.6	these milestone moments that make the whole roller coaster of being an entrepreneur a privilege.
0:57.0	Bower, let your eyelids close on down where we're going. You won't welcome to conversations of inspiration.
1:10.0	Back in 2006 I founded not on the high street from the kitchen table, and since then I've gone on to launch Holly and Co.
1:18.0	I'm the UK Ambassador of Creative Small Businesses, and I believe that having a business doing what you love
1:25.5	is the key to a happy fulfilled life.
1:28.8	My dream is to help everybody start theirs.
1:32.4	I'm here to offer advice, inspiration, wisdom and
1:35.6	encouragement and in my view the best way to do this is by sharing stories.
1:41.5	So I've reached out to my favorite small businesses, entrepreneurs and those who
1:46.1	simply inspire me and ask them to share theirs with thanks to NatWest who have helped bring
1:52.1	this free podcast to life.
1:54.0	Here are my conversations of inspiration.
1:58.0	Hello Angus, you will be glad to know that before this interview I asked the whole Holly and Co team if they were
2:05.8	chocolics as I was and every single hand went up and then we had a sort of competition
	...

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