A business owner, who has worked with some of finest chocolatiers in the country, is determined to carry on selling her wares at shows and markets – up to nine days before she is set to give birth to her first child.
Chloé Read, who owns Burston-based Lifetime of Chocolate, has a CV that includes working for pâtissier and chocolatier William Curly and multi-award-winning Paul Young in London for two years before returning home to Norfolk.
She then launched her business in October 2020 and, since then, it has gone from strength to strength.
The 26-year-old said: “My husband, Aiden, was working in Harrods and was made redundant due to the pandemic.
“With all the costs that go with living in central London, we moved back to Norfolk and found that no one was doing what they do so well in London, so I set up Lifetime of Chocolate.”
The business sells the likes of chocolate bars, brownies and fudge online, as well as in Jarrolds in Norwich and A Slice of Country Life in Diss, but is equally popular at the various markets and shows which Mrs Read attends.
“When I opened the online shop, it went absolutely crazy and, with the markets now, I pretty much sell out every time,” she said.
This is why at 32 weeks pregnant with a little boy, she has no plans of slowing down just yet.
“I am still going strong and I know a lot of other women who have done this,” she said.
“I do get tired very quickly and there are a lot of breaks being had but, at the end of the day, when you are running your own business and love what you do, like I do, then you just carry on.
“I have the Norfolk Show coming up and I plan to be selling chocolate there.
“I do, however, plan to close the online shop at the end of July, just to ease the pressure a little, for about a month or two.”
For more details, go online to www.lifetimeofchocolate.com.
