In 1998, the company launched the Chocolate Tasting Club currently has around 100,000 members. So far, the Wine Tasting Club has tested more than 1,500 different recipes.
In 2003, Choc Express Hotel Chocolat renamed and launched its first store in the center of the town of Watford. Then, the company grew initially with four stores in the East Anglia area, with shops in Milton Keynes, Cambridge and St. Albans opening between 2005 and 2006.
In 2006, the company officially acquired the Rabot Estate in St. Lucia, West Indies, and to date the only company in the UK with their own personal assets of cocoa for the manufacture of its products. Today the company has 41 stores across the UK, a transactional web site and a mail order catalog. Hotel Chocolat Ltd. also have their warehouse based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, And currently has two stores in the Boston area. In the first quarter of 2010, Hotel Chocolat also entered the Middle East and therefore have a store each in Bahrain, Dubai and Kuwait.
Hotel Chocolat has been awarded Emerging Retailer of the Year in the week to retail and Coolbrands nominated as one of the UK. The company was also awarded the Silver Award, 2009 Academy of Chocolate awards.
From January 2011, 56 stores in the UK and an expansion of the current program for retail in the United States, anchored by a flagship store on tony Newbury Street in Boston for the first time offers Hotel Chocolat Tasting Room.
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