Chocolate & Love, the online premier chocolate firm founded by Scots web entrepreneur Richard O'Connor, has achieved £1 million in sales across more than 40 countries in 2014, largely due to explosive growth in China.
The company, which is based in Perth and which uses the web to source and distribute "ethical and exquisite" fair trade chocolate, has grown sales by more than 200% this year despite an 80% slump in sales to Russia attributed to the economic crisis.
O'Connor said the major growth market for the Swiss-made chocolate brand is China, where sales have grown exponentially through a new distribution deal to become Chocolate & Love's biggest market.
The firm has also negotiated a distribution deal with Nishimoto Trading Company in Japan, holding out the prospect of growth in the notoriously hard-to-crack but highly lucrative and luxury-loving market in the country.
C&L has a range of seven organic, fairly traded chocolate bars made from cacao beans from Peru, Panama and the Dominican Republic, with two more flavours due to be added next year. The firm has won five Great Taste awards from The Guild of Fine Food, and a packaging award from Denmark.
An Aberdeen University graduate now dividing his time between Scotland and Copenhagen, O'Connor was the founder of ecommerce firm Ambergreen and marketing analytics firm Lynchpin, before founding Chocolate & Love in 2010 with his partner, Birgitte Hovmand, a Danish lawyer. He also founded the entrepreneurs network Weentrepreneurs.
O'Connor said: With the decision to convert to a majority organic diet after the birth of our daughter Sophia, we struggled to find quality organic chocolate. so we decided to make our own and Chocolate and Love was created."
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