25 Years old and still passionate about chocolate

Devonport Chocolates turns 25 years old this year, and like all major birthdays it comes with a lot of reflection and looking to the future.

The original Devonport Chocolates range,
photo taken when we took over the business in 1999.

Devonport Chocolates started in a humble kitchen with a Mum and Daughter wanting a business challenge.  Gayle MacDuff and her daughter Joanne had the fabulous idea to start a small chocolate kitchen in 1991.  The core product was to be what was called the Truffle Log.  A fairly chunky piece of chocolate that you are meant to slice, perfect as gifts or presented as a dessert on a cheese board. Gayle's selling prowess saw them quickly stocked by Devonport Pharmacy and then they went from there.  After a few years and a move out of the kitchen and into a small industrial unit in Glenfield Gayle and Joanne sold to Linda & Kay who ran Devonport Chocolates as well as having full-time jobs at Air New Zealand.

While Devonport Chocolates was unfolding, my Mum Stephanie was feeling the need to end her long career in publishing.  Stephanie mentioned to _ & _ that if the ever wanted to sell the business she would be interested, she could already see the potential of this exciting business if it has someone to focus on it.  In 1999, Stephanie sat down for her first cup of tea of semi-retirement and the phone range Linda & Kay were selling Devonport Chocolates and would she be interested.  Mum has never looked back.  As a uni student my part-time job quickly became the family business and Mum and I found ourselves working together again, I didn't realise until today what a great circle for the business to have started off with a Mum and Daughter and to have ended up there too (plus a Dad and a brother in the mix too).

Circa 2003, our little chocolate shop in Devonport

Never to sit still for long within the first three years Stephanie had brought Devonport Chocolates back to Devonport by buying an industrial building in Wynyard St, Devonport and building the chocolate kitchen within the building.  We built our own website and opened our little chocolate shop, and somewhere in those crazy few years Stephanie also took herself off to chocolate school in Melbourne to the William Angliss Institute, after recognising that the business would only go so far with Truffle Logs and we now had a little shop that we needed to fill with chocolates.

One of our earlier Christmas ranges, probably around 2000

The first few years of owning Devonport Chocolates are a blur of late nights, early mornings and heaps and heaps of amazing staff.  I remember dreaming decorating holly truffles after doing it for days on end one Christmas.  We have had 2 complete re-brands, I've lost count of how many website rebuilds,  hundreds of amazing staff, thousands of incredible customers from around the world and goodness knows how many new flavours.

There are two groups of people that have been essential to Devonport Chocolates.

The first group are the incredibly loyal Devonport locals.  They were quick to adopt us as there own and proudly give a gift that was made in Devonport, a huge thank you to you all.

Our second group is our fabulous staff.  We have had experienced chocolatiers who have shared their knowledge and trained our staff, we have had people who have started packing chocolates after school and haven't left until they finished uni, some have even since come back to work for us again. Our staff are passionate about our chocolates, they really care about every single one being an amazing experience for our customers and their standards are incredibly high.

So where to from here for Devonport Chocolates.  We have been thrilled with the success of our bean to bar Samoan chocolate, and I'm incredibly proud of my Dad, this has been his baby for a couple of years now and we are looking at what else we can make with these beautiful beans we get from Nusi in Samoa. We never sit still for long so there are a few changes you will start seeing in Devonport Chocolates stores over the next few months as we keep racing forwards.