Montezuma’s to boost capacity as sales surge

Luxury chocolate maker Montezuma’s is hoping to significantly boost capacity next year with the installation of a new production line at its factory in Chichester. It is also exploring diversifying into new product areas.

The firm, which has been growing rapidly in the last 18 months, has been frantically busy in recent months and is now operating 18-hour days, seven days a week, said director and co-founder Simon Pattinson.

“We’re aiming to hold on until next Easter and then bring in the new line in summer 2010, which is much faster and should triple our capacity.”

Profit margins have also improved over the last year following a concerted attempt to ‘professionalise’ the business with initiatives in place to upgrade IT systems, improve recipe control and the utilisation of ingredients and labour, control costs, reduce stock levels, said Pattinson, who moved into the Chichester premises in 2005. “Managers now have a much stronger grasp of their profit and loss accounts. We have far better controls.”

Sales at the firm, which Pattinson and his wife Helen set up just after the turn of the century, have been growing rapidly, he added. “Sales in our five retail outlets have been growing at about 12% on a like-for-like basis, while sales to trade customers have been growing at around 40-45% year-on-year. We have also had some success on the export side of the business.” Turnover excluding sales from its own shops was £5M, he said.

While Montezuma’s has listings at Waitrose, it was not basing its growth strategy on securing more listings with the major supermarkets, said Pattinson. “We don’t need to go down that route. We’re focusing on independent retailers and we’ve also got a new mini bar format that is doing well in the café bar market.”

The next step for the business, which has made a name for itself by developing chocolates and truffles using unusual flavours like salt, geranium oil, mandarin and tequila, is diversifying into new product areas, said Pattinson. “Gü doesn’t really have any direct competition at the moment, so we are looking beyond just ambient confectionery products.”

The bulk of Montezuma’s stock is sold via wholesalers to the independent retail market, but it also distributes products via Waitrose, five of its own shops, cafes, mail order and its website.