There’s a new Wonka in town and it’s not Timothée Chalamet.
London’s newest ‘master distiller’ of cocoa is Jens Knoops, whose eponymous hot chocolate shop is causing a decadent storm in the capital and beyond.
Knoops, which serves virtually every hot chocolate combination imaginable – three billion, to be exact – currently has fifteen branches across the country, including seven in London.
At the South Kensington branch, managing director William Gordon-Harris explained how he discovered the original Knoops in the seaside town of Rye.
“My son was a customer and I think everyone in Rye was a customer,” he said, adding that he, too, was quickly converted by Knoops’ smoky, 80 percent Ugandan chocolate brew, which is now his favorite drink.
The talkative Gordon-Harris, who also describes the founder as a chocolate sommelier, said his first meeting with the Knoops was “one of the most formative” of his life.
“A moment when the idea of a billion dollars came to mind,” he added.
Knoops is still a long way from the billion-dollar mark, but it is experiencing growth that even Willy Wonka would envy.
For the full financial year ended March, total revenue rose 67 percent to £4.4 million (2022: £2.6 million).
In the six months to September, sales rose 90 percent to £3.3 million (£1.7 million) in the first half of 2022.
Retail sales have soared by 119 percent in the last six months, 87 percent of which can be attributed to Knoops chocolate flakes.
But this is just the beginning, says Gordon-Harris, who has global ambitions.
As part of its current expansion plans, Knoops aims to open 20 stores nationwide by spring 2024 and a further 20 the following year. The aim is to have 200 stores across the UK in the “medium term”.
The company has never seen a website without annual growth, and Knoops expects to have 3,000 stores worldwide by 2030.
Despite the ambitious plans, Gordon-Harris believes the appetite is there.
“The addressable market is huge,” he explained, “and now that we have all the systems in place, scaling is incredibly easy for us.”
“The model has been tested through a series of shoots at different locations with different customer bases and has demonstrated its robustness and year-on-year improvement in growth.”
Knoops is already attracting attention abroad. Warner Brothers recently contacted the company about collaborating on the new Wonka film starring Chalamet and Hugh Grant.
They invented the “Wonka Warmer” for a pop-up truck at Westfield Shopping Centre, which was “a huge success”.
Last month, Knoops completed a capital raising of £8.3m, which Gordon-Harris attributed to the fact that the liquid chocolate market was still untapped.
“The coffee business is about finding a new niche within the coffee business, and it is completely saturated.
“However, we can open next to a cafe and be just as successful as if there were no cafe in sight. It makes no difference to us,” he said.
Knoops attracts crowds of theatergoers, ravenous chocoholics and an ever-growing number of addicted drinkers who prefer barista-made drinks to instant powder.
It could be the ticket to a chocolate revolution on Britain’s high streets.
