Northern Irish gourmet chocolatier rebrands to grow business

Northern Irish chocolatier Caroline McArdle has rebranded her business in a bid to grow sales from gourmet chocolate lovers. She's launched the Cobden and Brown brand with new up-market packaging and an extended range of chocolate bars.

While retaining the artisan identity of the business she set up in 2001 remains important to her, she saw a need for contemporary branding that would enable her bars to compete more successfully with other established chocolates.

Based near Lurgan in county Armagh, she previously developed chocolate bars in transparent packaging under the Cirillo brand. She now hopes the new brand will be more effective as she seeks to grow sales in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. The new range of gourmet chocolate bars is also being sold through her website and a social media campaign.

"It's a very competitive market dominated by longer established brands with huge marketing budgets. I reckoned the only way I could hope to compete was by means of sharper design focusing on the quality, outstanding taste and handcrafted nature of my chocolate bars.

"This meant moving up-market and not to try to compete with the volume brands. The new branding has been created to reflect the quality of the chocolate bars in a more contemporary fashion. The packaging is targeted at chocolate lovers prepared to pay a small premium to enjoy a quality and handcrafted product from what remains an artisan business," she says.

She worked with her design team to develop the new corporate identity. "We looked at a number of possible brand names and settled on Cobden and Brown because it seemed to us to convey the quality and style that we wished and would attract up-market chocolate lovers.

"I decided to look for a new brand because of feedback on Cirillo, the product identity I chose to launch my initial range of bars and Florentines. People couldn't really identify with it or what it was meant to convey. I chose it because it's an Italian name and I wanted to piggyback on Italy's reputation as a producer of fine chocolates.

"The Cobden and Brown identify reflects the philosophy underpinning the business; we produce delicious chocolates that taste great and are also gluten-free, the latter being an important and developing market opportunity. This means that people with coeliac disease, for example, can continue to enjoy delicious chocolate that's handcrafted without gluten."

In addition to being gluten-free, Cobden and Brown chocolates are free from wheat and eggs. The company's dark chocolate is also dairy-free. Knowledge and experience gained is enabling her to spot other opportunities for her expertise and knowledge in creating 'free from' chocolates, a developing market particularly in Britain, the US and Middle East. Cocoa for the chocolates is sourced directly from Ghana and Ecuador to ensure it is free from additives.

Another key feature of the chocolates is that they are produced without any processed ingredients. The chocolates are carefully handmade in small batches to recipes that she has developed and are fully tested as being gluten-free by a fully accredited laboratory.

"This means that chocolate lovers can count on the products being completely gluten-free and on the provenance of all the ingredients. We have total control over the sourcing of all ingredients and the entire production process," she adds.

The six-strong range of luxury chocolates includes milk chocolate, dark and white bars. The new dark 60 per cent is dairy-free and suitable for vegans. The range also includes a dark 70 per cent using single origin beans from Ecuador and an 85 per cent house blend for lovers of a bitter cocoa flavour. All bars are 100g in weight.