Someday Studios approached Formroom to design a high street chocolate shop for one of their brand partners in the run-up to Christmas, as part of Westminster City Council’s ‘Meanwhile On’ project near Oxford Street. The brand, Love Cocoa, was founded by James Cadbury, the great, great, great grandson of philanthropist, John Cadbury, who opened his first shop selling tea, coffee and drinking chocolate 200 years ago in Birmingham. The benevolent brand purpose, coupled with its famous family legacy, created a combination we couldn’t turn down.
As a registered B-corp, Love Cocoa is on a mission to provide real change within the chocolate industry through ethical and sustainable production, in line with the family’s philanthropic history. This history, and the origins of the Cadbury brand, was something that inspired our shop design and layout, which includes a hot chocolate café and luxury selection of single-origin, sustainably sourced chocolates, crafted from the world’s finest cacao, beautifully presented in eco-friendly, plastic-free packaging.
Our design aesthetic was founded on the idea of being ‘inside a chocolate box’, with wall panelling and colours that mirror the shape and packaging of Love Cocoa’s bars. The retail strategy and concept design that we developed, together with James and Someday Studios, help to create the brand’s first physical presence in a way that is both ownable to the brand (through product-inspired fixtures, patterns, colours and sustainable materials made from cocoa beans) and memorable to customers (through the part retail, part café experience).
The store is part of Westminster City Council’s Meanwhile On project, set up to provide innovative brands with access to high-profile retail spaces. James was one of the businesses chosen out of over 800 to set up shop in Westminster. Other brands to open their doors as part of the Meanwhile On campaign are clothes rental platform By Rotation, premium knitwear label Hades and skincare members club Beauty Pie.
“The inspiration behind Love Cocoa comes from my great-great-great grandfather John Cadbury, who was a philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner. Like him, I want to build my company on great ethical grounds. His focus was looking after his workforce and improving civil rights, and it is these same ethical values that remain at the heart of our company today.” ~ James Cadbury
Source: Formroom
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