About us.....
As Tom Hanks said in the film Forest Gump " Life is like a box of chocolates....you never know what you're gonna get". Certainly, you never know what life will throw at you or where the path will lead. We didn't plan to be chocolatiers, it just sort of happened!
The situation was that we had just had one child, and another was on the way. Neither of us fancied getting a career which would take us away from the children. So the story goes, that one Saturday morning, out of the blue, we decided to make chocolate. We then proceeded to walk to town and spent £15 on ingredients. Twelve years later, the rest is history.
We are self taught....no Belgian chocolate course for us (we couldn't afford it at the time and read a few books instead) which can be beneficial on the one hand and detrimental on the other. Ideas seem fresh and novel...different from the norm....sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, that is how we learn.
We still produce our chocolates in the same way as we did when we first started. All our products are handmade in small batches with passion, care and pride.
We do not own any automatic tempering machines or enrobing machines. Even some of the chocolate moulds have been handmade by Cocoadance. Every chocolate is handmade the old-fashioned way. If something needs enrobing....we use a dipping fork!
We don't believe that chocolate should be precious or exclusive, but fun and exciting, not just to be used to measure one's self with one's peers.
We are the producers, the packers, the sellers, the quality control. "Small is beautiful !"
Since first showing at the BBC Good Food Show in 2000, Cocoadance under the guiding hands of David Golubows and Bridget Joyce, have supplied some of the best known retailers including Harvey Nichols, Selfridges & Co, Liberty, Fenwicks, Hamleys, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Conrad Shop, Brown Thomas and de Bijenkorf though it must be said, Cocoadance take as much pride in supplying the smaller retail outlets as they do the large.
Some of Cocoadance's highlights include specially prepared handmade truffles for the BAFTA's ceremony (2001),
chocolate talks (including the Sunday Telegraph stand at the Spirit of Christmas Show-Hotel Olympia, Great Peak District Fair 2004, 2005), Gold Award Winner- Great Taste Awards 2003 and a feature on Radio Sheffield (John Kelly Show).
Some of the publications Cocoadance have been featured in include Cosmo Bride, Food and Travel Magazine, You and Your Wedding, BBC Country File Magazine, The Sunday Times (Travel Section-Sept 2007), Gay Scene Magazine, Brides Magazine, Delicious Magazine, Sheffield Telegraph, Buxton Advertiser, Peak District Magazine, Pure(Buxton) and Derbyshire Life Magazine.
Cocoadance have also appeared on Country File, BBC North West and I.T.V's Heart of the Country.
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