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Premium chocolate maker eyes up international markets

When Lucy Bennetto was teaching drama in Dubai, she noticed that everything in restaurants was high end – except the drinking chocolate. With café culture continuing to grow, she realised there was a niche in the market.

4 minute read

Lucy Bennetto started to learn how to make chocolate, and after rounds of trial and error, Bennetto Natural Foods Co came to be and its 70% cocoa drinking chocolate bars hit the New Zealand market in 2011.

Initially, Lucy outsourced the production to a factory in Christchurch, but when that facility shut down she created her own, purchasing the equipment from her personal savings. Nowadays the Christchurch-based company exports to Australia and Singapore, is working with business managers in Australia and Asia, and has added drinking chocolate powder, and chocolate bars (which are manufactured in Switzerland) –to its organic, Fairtrade, and vegan range.

Catering to a niche market

Lucy’s personal philosophy is clean eating and avoiding any unnecessary ingredients. This philosophy has resulted in production of clean and honest products, which now have the certification to prove it.

Lucy had to jump through quite a few hoops to get the company vegan certified, proving that throughout the whole production process the products had not been near animal products: the sugar not filtered through bone char, the oranges used in her chocolate not covered with bee wax, and the coconuts not selected by monkeys.

“A lot of our customers are vegan,” says Bennetto, “and they find it hard to get hold of a quality product that’s not overpriced.”

She’s aware that younger people tend to be more conscious of what they eat, and read labels more. That translates into a large share of young, female, vegan followers on the company’s Instagram account, managed by an external social media manager who falls right into the demographic. She uses giveaways and collaborations with other brands with a similar focus, to engage users of the platform.

Lucy also uses offline events to raise awareness of her business and regularly sells her products at fairs and other gatherings.

She collaborates closely with her bank and recently supplied her products for the opening of BNZ’s shared workspace community101, to a Private Bank event, as well as for the staff Christmas party. “I really appreciate the support BNZ has given me,” says Bennetto.

Getting ready for international expansion

Bennetto wants to expand to countries like Japan (by popular demand), Taiwan, Germany and the UK. “German and UK consumers are quite progressive in their food choices, with many preferring organic and Fairtrade products. Japanese and Taiwanese consumers like dark chocolate and also tend to go for healthier options.”

With their chocolate bars being manufactured in Switzerland already, Europe is an obvious choice, but as Bennetto explains, it’s not as simple as it sounds. “It’s difficult for a small player to break into a new market where no one knows your brand, and you have to convince a distributor to take a sizeable minimum order.”

Entering the Australian market was a smoother process. “I took quite a risky approach by placing the minimum order for my ingredients, despite not having an order confirmed,” shared Bennetto, who saw an opening to do better than the main competitor, with a high-quality product at a lower price per gram.

Her products stand out through artful packaging, with Peruvian birds, referencing the Amazonian origin of the cocoa dressed to resemble human characters. “I worked with a designer until I got it right,” says Bennetto, who has a background in art history. “People are drawn to things they can relate to. The birds reflect the human element of the brand.”

The whole journey is a huge learning process for Bennetto, who works closely with her BNZ Partner. “It’s good to have someone to talk to and get advice on all aspects of doing business,” says Bennetto, who obtained financing from the bank, and gains insight from her BNZ Partner on things such as cashflow timing.

“The focus remains in Australia and New Zealand for now, but I’m keeping in mind it’s a good export product,” Bennetto concludes.

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