Sweet success for Willie’s chocolate factory

Even before the curly script of the green neon sign comes into view, the chocolate from Willie’s Wonky chocolate factory fills my lungs with its rich cacao aroma. The Devonshire chicken coop, as Willie Harcourt-Cooze refers to his factory, is in the midst of manufacturing its newly launched chocolate bar when I turn up to interview the man behind the brand made famous by the Channel 4 TV show, which followed Harcourt-Cooze’s attempts to establish his 100% cacao brand in the UK. His second TV series, Willie’s Chocolate Revolution, started late last month.

It all started when I went to Venezuela in 1993, Harcourt-Cooze explains while making a cup of tea in the factory’s kitchen. I was travelling, like most people do, and found myself on the beach. It was there, he says, that an umbrella salesman called Mervin told him about a friend who wanted to sell a cocoa farm.

Despite having no intention of buying the farm, Harcourt-Cooze made the journey to the El Tesoro farm. He liked what he saw. After three years living in Venezuela, in 1996 he eventually bought it. The idea of launching his own range of chocolate grew from him selling distinctive cylindrical bars to locals from the farm.

Shaping up
The shape is an accidental hero, he says with a smile. I was in Venezuela, where I made 100% bars and sold them to the locals. Basically I needed a mould, so I found a pipe and chopped it down. The resulting cylindrical bar benefited from low surface area that meant it kept for longer and from a marketing view it made it different from everybody else.

On the packaging front, initially the bars were sold in brown wax-backed paper. However, when Harcourt-Cooze relocated to Devon and set about launching the brand in the UK, he took another look at the packaging. It was at this point he enlisted the help of his friend, the fiery Hell’s Kitchen chef, Marco Pierre White. The Venezuelan packaging design was hand drawn over lunch with Marco, explains Harcourt-Cooze. It was one of those ‘back of a cigarette packet’ meetings.

The packaging that resulted from the meeting was traditional in style. It wasn’t until Bristol design agency Taxi Studio got involved at the end of 2007 that it became much more blingy, he says.

Harcourt-Cooze’s brother introduced him to Taxi Studio creative director Spencer Buck. The first thing was getting the communication hierarchy right and creating a branding system that would allow Harcourt-Cooze to grow his portfolio beyond Venezuelan Black into confectionery and hot chocolate, explains Buck. Therefore, he set about making it clear exactly how this product is used through slogans such as Grate in food, great on food and printing recipes on the inside of the label.

Prestige packs
Typography was inspired by pictures of glass bottles from Harcourt-Cooze’s hacienda in Venezuela and created by legendary typographer Peter Horridge. We wanted to make it look sexier, says Buck. These products aren’t cheap, so we wanted to make it look like it was worth the money.

Allowing Taxi Studio to alter Venezuelan Black’s packaging proved more difficult for Harcourt-Cooze than he had initially thought. I was very attached to the old label as me and Marco had done it, he explains. However, I definitely bought into Taxi. You have to separate emotion from practicality.

The Willie’s Cacao range now includes the original 100% pure cacao range used for cooking, Venezuelan 72 and Peruvian 70 bars of chocolate and the soon-to-be launched Get Up & Gocoa hot chocolate drink. Taxi Studio created a hierarchy within the brand by introducing the words supreme, delectable and rambunctious into the logo of each product respectively, to differentiate the ranges.

Harcourt-Cooze admits that the art of business is knowing your limitations and says that he has never been afraid to ask for advice. Taxi has helped him source a lot of his packaging and he has adopted a local ethos in everything that he does. His foil is sourced from Multifoil in Exeter, while his labels are from Taylor Brothers in Bristol, where Taxi Studio is also based.

Over the course of the two television series, the brand has grown. It is now available on the shelves of Selfridges, Waitrose and Harvey Nichols. Its success has been mirrored by that of the television shows and the publication of a cookery book.

The pride Harcourt-Cooze takes in creating his chocolate is clear to see and the same jubilant excitement he expressed in his first television series is as strong as ever in the latest instalment, Willie’s Chocolate Revolution. It is clear there is chocolate running through his veins.

TIMELINE
1993 On the advice of Mervin, a beach umbrella salesman, Harcourt-Cooze stumbles on El Tesoro cacao farm in Venezuela
1996 Harcourt-Cooze buys El Tesoro
1998 Starts making 100% cacao bars for locals from the farm
2001 Harcourt-Cooze returns to England
2007 Meets Taxi Studio’s creative director Spencer Buck, who redesigns packaging
2008 Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory airs on Channel 4
2009 Willie’s Chocolate Revolution is aired at the same time as Harcourt-Cooze’s Delectable Cacao range of chocolate bars is launched – to be shortly followed by the launch of Get Up & Gocoa hot chocolate drink