Full of beans: Café puts chocolate centre stage

London – Cocoa producer and chocolatier Hotel Chocolat has opened the Roast + Conch shop and café, where cocoa is substituted for coffee, and which shows visitors how cocoa beans are prepared.

Roast + Conch has installed micro versions of the equipment and machinery needed to make chocolate bars, and visitors can see chocolate being made in small batches.

‘In the new store we can manage everything about production on a micro level, and experiment with taste,’ says Serena Fidgett, special projects, office of CEO at Hotel Chocolat. ‘The project is about teaching people and demystifying what happens to chocolate and cocoa when it is produced.’

This is a great example of Show Your Working. Introducing customers to the process behind your product makes them appreciate it more. For more on how people are responding to repurposed ingredients in the drinks market, read our Drinks Futures report.