The Harrogate Chocolate Factory and Harrogate Chocolate Factory Café are social enterprises run by HS4LC’s Skills Bridge programmes. We aim to support young people with learning disabilities and autism gain the confidence and skills they need to achieve paid employment – and in the process help everyone else feel good too.

So why make chocolate?

Firstly, we’re all very interested in anything that helps our overall wellbeing – we’re living in strange times and perhaps more than ever we need to look after our physical and mental health. At HS4LC we encourage healthy eating and lifestyles so it followed that we stay true to our values.

We did lots of research and noticed a growing interest in healthy and nutritious snacks that provide sustainable energy but with less sugar or unhealthy additives. Once we started to think about chocolate, we realised straight away that we were onto something after all, what’s not to like; delicious chocolate to indulge in that’s healthy too!

Not only is it possible to make gorgeous, healthy and nutritious chocolate but the production process really suits the abilities of our students and has many transferrable skills.

We then saw an opportunity to create an exciting new brand in Harrogate – if you go to York for instance, they have chocolate literally flowing through their heritage – so why not Harrogate?

So, the Harrogate Chocolate Factory was born and here starts the ‘story of chocolate in Harrogate’.

At the beginning of 2024 Harrogate Chocolate Factory became a Social Enterprise UK member which means we are now an accredited social enterprise and part of a network that includes a diverse range of UK social enterprises from multi-million-pound health care and public service providers to community organisations and retail businesses.

In July 2021 we opened the Harrogate Chocolate Factory café. This provides an excellent training ground for young trainees to build confidence, learn new skills and raise their aspirations. Click here to find out more about our café.

Please also check our website www.hs4lc.org.uk  for more information about the charity and other work we do.