3x our Turnover 🙀

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like you need TWO January’s to actually get things going and catch up after the new year?  It feels like yesterday I was feeding a wild cow a coconut on New Year's Day (they love them btw). I swear, the first month always feels like a total whirlwind! But now that we’re finally in February, I wanted to take a min to reflect and share some updates from Catherine’s Originals. It’s been a month of growth, learning, and, yes, a lot of overthinking on my part (because I’m definitely an overthinker).

I actually love January—it’s the perfect time for a personal reset (call me a "January gym-goer," I don’t mind). It’s when I can focus on goal-setting and self-improvement, which ultimately helps Catherine’s Originals.

I try to do my “one hour of movement a day,” but when you’re working nonstop, it’s easy to skip. That’s life! But this January, Jamie, Scott, and I have been hitting the gym and making exercise a priority. We know work’s going to ramp up, so we’re committed to staying active this quarter whilst we can! 💪 The number of times i’ve said this month “it’s grey, it’s dark, I’m tired, I’d much rather have a bath” and the number of times the boys have dragged me out to exercise and I feel better for it, it’s crazy. Sometimes that’s all you need, a team player to keep pushing one another (in all parts of life)!

Another proud moment, for our team is that we have 3x our turnover compared to January 2024! 🎉

I’m still processing that number! This is only our second-ever January, so I’m still figuring out the rhythms of trends, highs, and lows, and seeing what works (and what doesn’t). But I’m confident now that we’ve got a full year of data to work with, 2025 is going to be a game-changer for Catherine’s Originals. More chocolate is coming your way!

This month has also been a time for reflection, and I’ve realised something important—I owe you all an apology. I sent out a survey last week asking for your thoughts on our dream to one day open an in-person chocolate hub/ host an event. I imagined it as a space where all of us chocolate lovers could gather, chat, and share experiences. We had 98 responses to the survey, which is amazing! That shows there’s real interest in something like this, which makes me so excited! THANK YOU!  But after reading through your feedback, I realise I might’ve thrown some ideas that weren’t the best fit for everyone and jumped the gun. Some of you weren’t keen on the idea of watching movies with a crowd of strangers (fair enough). I should’ve started by asking you what you really wanted, so I’m going to try again with a new survey where you can tell me exactly what you're looking for and I can start slow by getting to know you a bit more!

So please, if you missed the first one, check out the link below! I’d love to hear from you. Your feedback helps us improve and make sure we’re delivering exactly what you want from Catherine’s Originals.

Speaking of feedback, one thing that came up a few times in the survey was customer service. I want to be upfront with you—we don’t have a dedicated customer service team right now. Jamie and I are handling everything outside of the chocolate-making side of the business (huge thanks to our amazing production team for handling the chocolate part!). From product development, sourcing ingredients, packaging, managing operations, marketing, fundraising, partnerships, distribution and yes, of course, customer care—it’s all on our plates. So, if you’ve ever received an auto-response or felt like your email didn’t get a personal reply right away, we sieve through the inbox and if we know your question has been answered in the auto-response, we don’t usually reply (there’s not enough hours in our days currently). However, I understand you want a human response and we’re working on it! This year, we’re planning to hire someone dedicated to customer care, but as a small business, we just don’t have the budget for it yet… However, it’s a priority, and we’re doing everything we can to improve in this area!

Here’s another update: we’ve invested in a new wrapping machine (Fiona V2?). This will change the way we wrap Snap Me and The Cookie Muncher chocolates to make sure they stay as fresh as possible.

These two chocolates have a shorter shelf life, so with the new airtight wrapping, we’re ensuring they stay fresher for longer. Your feedback made this possible, and we’re so happy to be improving on this front!

One of the biggest challenges we’re facing right now is the cocoa market crisis. Due to things like weather and other global factors, there is not enough cocoa to go around, which means prices are going through the roof. As a result, many chocolate companies are raising their prices or cutting back on the amount of chocolate in their products. But here’s where we’re doing things differently: last year, we took a risk and bought as much chocolate as we could afford to stock up before prices increased even more. This means we won’t be raising our prices right away like everyone. We’re not changing our recipes or reducing the amount of chocolate in each box. We want to keep offering you the best chocolate at the same price, even if we make less profit at the end of the year.

We’re hopeful that by summer 2025, the cocoa market will have settled, and cocoa prices will be more affordable again. If not, our backup plan is to focus more on selling directly through our website. By scaling online, we’ll just take a smaller profit (and slower business growth) if we can’t get chocolate at the same prices we’ve been paying. Only time will tell!

Fingers crossed we don’t end up shooting ourselves in the foot by not raising prices like everyone else. But we’re committed to giving you the best experience possible, at the best price we can, even in a tough market. If we can get through this, we’ll get through anything! 💪

The cocoa crisis is not just bad for the customer and the cost of a bar. It goes a lot deeper than this. The lack of cocoa is putting cocoa farmers and workers at serious life/death risk. Many are facing threats, there have even been kidnapping’s and lorry theft, and it’s becoming a dangerous situation. This reiterates the importance of buying fairly traded cocoa! If you want to learn more about this, read more here…

So, after a crazy January, with all of these challenges and changes, I’m feeling really proud of what we’ve accomplished so far.

Big things are coming in February, so stay tuned for the season of Love! And don’t forget to take part in the surveys—your input does not just effect Catherine’s Originals Chocolates, but many others, like our team and external suppliers.

Love always.

Stay sweet,
Catherine 🍫