Hotel Chocolat has unveiled its biggest brand refresh for 21 years, designed to make its luxury products more accessible to shoppers and tackle soaring inflation.
The complete “transformation” includes a redesign of its signature gift box collections, a widening of price points and an overhaul of its core chocolate range, The Grocer can reveal.
From 3 March, new nine-piece (£14), 18-piece (£24), 27-piece, and 29-piece (both £34) boxes will roll onto shelves and online. It will be followed on 14 April by a new entry-level range including a three-piece box costing £5 and a six-piece box priced at £10, as well as a new premium £55 58-piece collection.
Hotel Chocolat has also overhauled the packaging of its box collections to make the products more “personalisable”. All boxes now include a detachable messaging “wrap” on which customers can write a personal message.
Each collection will also now be categorised according to the brand’s refreshed six customer taste types; Patisserie Dreamer, Milk Devotee, A Twist of Tipsy, Exuberantly Fruity, Notably Nutty and Serious Dark Fix. Boxes containing “everything” as well as vegan alternatives are also available.
Hotel Chocolat’s big refresh
“It’s a big play by us, the first time in 21 years that we have done it,” Hotel Chocolat founder and global CEO Angus Thirlwell told The Grocer.
“We properly are meeting our customers where they want to be through taste preference as well as price point,” he said.
The tightening and introduction of new price points would help Hotel Chocolat manage “rolling inflation”, as cocoa prices soared to record highs in 2025 due to climate change and tighter global supply.
It would also offer customers more relevant trade-ups and trade-downs than its current range offered, Thirlwell said.
“It is the biggest ladder of price that is available in the marketplace. We’ve done that because we know the psychology that goes through all those things,” Thirlwell added.
“When people are thinking about the price of a birthday gift, they have a price in their head. If you can’t find one for £20, you trade down to the one that is £12.
“If our customers say they want to spend £20, we should be offering something around that,” Thirlwell said.
The new pricing structure replaces the brand’s current H Box and Sleekster boxes, which come in four-piece (£5.95), 14-piece (£17.95), 27-piece or 38-piece (both £29.95) and 42-piece (£44.95).
The retailer is also rolling out new payment features to its website designed to make group gifting easier. Shoppers will now be able to contribute to shared baskets one payment at a time.
It’s the first major shake-up to Hotel Chocolat’s core design and range since its £534m acquisition by Mars in November 2023. Thirlwell, who founded the retailer in 2004, has remained in charge as global CEO and is leading its third attempt to expand into the US.
The redesign has been overseen by Hotel Chocolat’s in-house design agency Hummingbird.
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