While Hotel Chocolat reported increased sales in the second half of last year, it flagged that inefficiencies with its supply chain during the festive period saw its costs increase “moderately”.
In a trading update for both the 13-week period and 26-week period ending December 29, 2019, the premium chocolate retailer reported group revenue increases of 11% and 14% respectively.
It said trading for the 13-week period including Christmas “continues to be in line with management’s expectations, though the cost to deliver this growth was modestly higher due to inefficiencies in the supply chain” – which it said would be addressed in 2020.
In the 26-week period, Hotel Chocolat reported the opening of nine new UK stores, which meant it ended the year with 125 across its estate.
Internationally, it opened a further two new stores in the US and three new joint-venture locations in Japan bringing the total number of locations in those countries to four and five respectively.
The retailer said its international stores contributed three percentage points to the 14% overall growth figure.
Co-founder and chief executive Angus Thirlwell said: “This was another strong performance from Hotel Chocolat. In our domestic UK market, we grew our VIP-Me member base to over 1.1m active members, as well as driving strong organic growth from our existing physical locations. We will continue to bring Hotel Chocolat to more locations in the UK where the deals are appropriate.
“The USA and our joint venture in Japan are both delivering an encouraging performance, growing to four and five locations respectively by the end of the period. While much of 2019 was about getting started in these large new markets, 2020 will see us accelerate our supply chain transformation.
“This focus will rebalance us from being a UK-based company operating from owned channels to one more suitable for multichannel multi-territory international supply.”
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