Elizabeth Shaw has joined a long list of UK manufacturers that have decided to outsource production and concentrate purely on sales and marketing.
The luxury chocolate maker, which had been looking to exit its old Bristol factory in favour of a smaller, more efficient modern facility, will cease production later this year and sell the site, said md Malachy McReynolds.
"We had already made the decision to outsource our Famous Names range of chocolates and, having looked at what was available, this led us to question the economics of manufacturing all of our products ourselves. We're talking to several different manufacturers both in the UK and overseas," said McReynolds.
Most of the 160 staff in Bristol are likely to face redundancy.
In the year to February 2005, the company made a pre-tax profit of £800,000 on turnover of £14.6m.