This year we are celebrating 96 years as a family business!
It all started back in 1927 when William Long had the fabulous idea of opening a luxury chocolate shop in the picturesque town of Keswick, in the heart of the Lake District. He probably never dreamed it would still be in the same family nearly 100 years later.
In those early days the shop only opened during the summer months and it is believed William chose to winter in the Madeira sunshine. As you would expect the business has evolved in many ways since then, however certain principles remain since those early days.
Innovation – We were the first to make a prosecco truffle and then shortly after we followed with our fabulous gin truffle. More recently; although Easter eggs are synonymous with Easter, we decided to move away from the main stream and invented our famous hot cross bun truffle. We have also been lead innovators in developing plant based chocolate with flavoured centres, this an area that we are very passionate about and continue to develop.
Our team of chocolatiers make our chocolates from scratch, by hand. This starts with making the shell; followed by the centre and finally the chocolate is dipping and decorating, meaning each one has its own unique charm.
But all this only scratches the surface; we are also one of the first chocolate makers to start transitioning to 100% biodegrade packaging as well as pioneering vegan milk and white chocolate...among other things.
Quality – Any new chocolate must meet certain requirements to get past our strict tasting panel. If one of the panel gives a score below 9/10 then we simply won’t offer the chocolate to our customers.
We spend a lot of time working with unusual, often small scale continental chocolate brands to bring something different to the UK. As ever, the chocolate has to be exceptional otherwise we will not introduce it to you lovely people.
Heritage – We are immensely proud of our historic roots and in this fast moving, ever changing world, we take pride in our tradition and heritage. The first chocolates that William sold way back in 1927, were rose and violet creams and to this day, they remain amongst our most popular chocolates. We have survived and prospered over the last 90 years and with the launch of our Ambleside store and an online service, we fully intend to be around for the next 100 years.
After all life is too short, so why settle for ordinary chocolate?
