We went to York Chocolate Festival with significant trepidation.
The months spent developing our product, branding, website, etc, all being tested on one weekend. It proved a real test of nerve for us.
- How would die-hard dairy fans react to our Undairy™ chocolate?
- How would people feel about our branding?
- As the only plant-based chocolate company there, would be we outcast?
It was also the first major festival we'd done. We had no idea of attendance, how much chocolate to make, and if that would be too much / too little. We'd made nearly 1000 bars and were amazed to be walking away with just a smattering of Smooth & Creamy bars to take home.
The event ran Thursday to Sunday and by the Friday we had so few bars left, we had to rush home, cannibalise stock for our next event so we could return on the Saturday with something to sell. Today, Sunday, with depleted stock levels in the CA kitchen, we had no choice but to miss the final day.
When 5pm hit on the Saturday, we took the tent down extremely grateful for an amazing first festival, something we'd genuinely never expected.
We're so incredibly grateful to everyone who bought our chocolate, from the very vegans to the dairy die-hards. Thank you for supporting us and helping make the event a success.
Our show in numbers:
- 1 plant-based chocolate brave enough to show up at York Chocolate Festival. Us.
- 974 bars sold.
- 80-90% of our sales were people who could eat dairy. People who just wanted good chocolate.
- 3 people said they didn't like our chocolate. Three. Against the thousands that tried it. That was simply mind-blowing, and so hugely complimentary. (Don't worry, we'll get them eventually).
- 2 exhausted founders.
- 321% increase in Instagram followers! We only went from 14 to 59, but still!