Olive Tree Chocolate

Sorry this is late being posted. For some reason the website didn't want to speak to me last night. After half an hour of trying I gave up and went to bed!!!

We will have the production area finished on Monday so the first chocolates will be made here next week. It's only 5 weeks until we open. When you look round it seems that we still have so much to do, but we have already come so far when you look at those first photographs.


Kev set about the retail area. The walls have been painted twice and the floor has been painted. It is the same floor paint as in the production area and a rich blue on the walls. The paint was bought online for a fraction of the price of our local DIY store.


The units that we bought second hand from the mart are now set up and in place. We wanted to check out working space and how the area will 'flow' so the old chocolate unit and table have been put into situ to get a feel for things. The area seems quite balanced and it is easy to move freely around. It also means that when production starts next week we will have somewhere to put stock!!! How good does that sound!

One of the things that occured to me the other day was how much, or should that be how little we have spent on the transformation so far. If you read the trade magazines it will say how you have to spend £30,000 to refit a standard shop. I know that we have put a huge amount of time in and been very reliant on friends to help when things are too much for us to be able to manage, but we are nowhere near that mark. When we get to the launch I think I may publish how much things cost, if only to prove that thinking outside the box can make a difference. If you look at this project logically I don't think it would ever have happened. I also think we probably would have run away with the screaming abdabs!