Bullion Chocolate, Yorkshire’s first bean-to-bar craft chocolate manufacturer, is appealing for the public’s help as it looks to take its award-winning chocolate to the masses.
Founded by Sheffield Hallam University graduate Max Scotford in 2016, Bullion has enjoyed great success so far with its award-winning chocolate stocked in a number of prestigious retailers including Harvey Nichols and Fenwicks.
Max uses the little known bean-to-bar manufacturing process taking some of the most sought-after cacao on the planet and works studiously with the beans to extract distinct flavours, which are then showcased within the chocolate.
Now the 25-year-old is looking to expand the business and he’s launching a Kickstarter campaign to help raise the money to open a café in the brand new Cutlery Works Food Hall in the Kelham Island area of Sheffield.
Bullion is already moving its production facilities to the new building but it has the opportunity to open a new café alongside it and it’s an opportunity that Max believes is just too good to turn down.
He said: “It has been a long-term dream of mine to open a café to serve our chocolate and when the opportunity came up to do it in Cutlery Works I just knew it was something that I had to try and do.
“We’re already moving our factory there and having the café next door would give us the opportunity to make it a really special experience. It would mean that we could give people more than just a product, they could see it being made and really become part of the process.
“It’s not easy, or cheap, to get something like this off the ground so I’m really hoping that people get behind us. If we manage to raise the money it would be truly amazing, to think that our supporters were responsible for us opening our first café would be incredible and truly humbling, to be honest.”
2018 has been another hugely successful year for Max and his brand, who collected the Academy of Chocolate’s silver and bronze accolades and also released a brand new ‘mini’s’ product line.
Raising the requisite funds to open the café, though, would be the cherry on top for the budding entrepreneur who is offering a wide range of incentives for those who pledge, from free coffee and factory tours to chocolate making classes and exclusive merchandise.
For anyone who would like to pledge, or even just to learn more about Bullion, you can visit www.bullionchocolate.com and access their Kickstarter page.