Meet Steffi Smith, The North East Chocolatier

Tell us how The Chocolate Smiths started.
I was made redundant from my job as a chocolatier for a really small company in Morpeth so I knew a bit about the basics of chocolate and I was actually planning on leaving the company anyway to start the business, so luckily I had everything already planned out. I started making chocolate initially from my kitchen, and then got into Tynemouth market and shops like Fenwick and little independent stores up and down the country. It was around the time when high street shops weren’t doing so well and The Chocolate Smiths began to decline. I was at a crossroads as to whether to continue but I knew I didn’t want to do anything else with my life, so I started pushing social media and online and it just seemed to all click.

You collaborate with other small businesses, tell us about that process.
Initially I started doing collaboration bars when a food blogger mentioned a company called The Cookie Mill who do deep dish cookies and suggested we collaborated with them. I thought it would make a cool addition, so they were the first people we approached. I’m really passionate about supporting small businesses and the collaboration bars allow us to put another business’s product into a mammoth chocolate bar and the label has the story of their business on as well. They have have gained loads of traction on social media – especially because they’re limited edition.

What are you most proud of?
Selling handmade products online is much more profitable than selling to retailers, and so I really wanted to create a working environment where my employees could come into work every day and just love what they do and be excited to come to work, and not have that Monday morning dread. No matter how big The Chocolate Smiths gets, I want that idea to filter through the whole company so I hold my head up high and say that I provide a decent lifestyle for people.