Harrogate Chocolate Factory offers key support for young people with autism and learning difficulties

The Harrogate Chocolate Factory has been operating as a key social enterprise within the Yorkshire town. Neill Barston speaks to Trinity Horn, manager of the recently created facility, who is a guest at this year’s World Confectionery Conference. She offers an insight into her valuable community work within confectionery

This year’s event is just one week away, attracting a broad cross section of the confectionery and snacks sector, across equipment, systems, ingredients and finished products – including some very special local enterprises.

Among the Yorkshire firms being represented will be the Harrogate Chocolate Factory, which has offered hope to young people with autism and learning difficulties through practical work placements in developing its own brand of sustainably-sourced chocolate, as Confectionery Production discovers from its manager, who will be attending this year’s show on 5 October. Registration for the event remains open, via our dedicated website.

Q: How did you come to your role at the Harrogate Chocolate Factory?
A: I started out quite young working in coffee shops and retail, and this role came through my brother who was the enterprise manager for our group, as there was an opening managing the chocolate factory that he had originally built up. It started with just two bars when I arrived two years ago. The CEO had wanted to create something a little different, and set up the factory in order to sell chocolate in the café. So, the idea was to create something that wasn’t too technical, but still fun for the guys who we are working with. As with lots of other places, there has not been too much in our area for young people with autism. While we have the café and chocolate factory, there’s a lot more to our work as well, with maths and English, as well as other life skills.

Q: How would you best describe the work of your business?
A: Our organisation is a social enterprise that helps young people with learning disabilities and autism gain valuable work experience that they can later transform into the world of work. The factory covers everything from being able to use machinery safely, to hygiene and chemical safety, as well as working as part of a team. I think it’s perfect for our learners in the development of their fine motor skills.

Q: You’re Yorkshire through and through – have you always been in Harrogate?
A: I was born nearby in Knaresborough, and moved to Selby when I was four and came back to Harrogate aged about 12, and we’ve been living here ever since. I think it’s just a nice place to live. It’s very communal, everyone knows everyone, and it has a real sense of community. It is a stunning area to visit, even within the town centre with its gardens, and nearby at Knaresborough, you have the viaduct which has great views.

Q: How do your learners best benefit from working with you?
A: I think the work that is being done by our team is very valuable. There’s nothing round here quite like it, as it’s given them the knowledge of how to make chocolate from bean-to-bar, which has built their confidence. I’ve always said this is the best job that I have ever had, and it’s built my own confidence up. I’ve seen how much our learners have progressed, seeing them come to us from the start and getting a job at the end of it, there’s nothing like it. I feel very proud of them. I think it’s made a huge difference, not just in confidence alone. It’s about getting them out of their shell a little bit. While they are working, they’re talking a lot more, just small things like that – they may have been to a mainstream school all their lives where they have felt blocked out, and nobody is interested in what they have to say. We are interested, and they have that confidence they can transfer into the world of work. So being here is massively important, explains Trinity (pictured below)

Q: How has the factory continued to evolve?
A: There were just two bars when it started out, beginning with a tabletop mixer, and it took a week to make a batch – we were upstairs in a kitchen area when we first started. It wasn’t based on sales, there was just a lot of sampling and the packaging was on paper. We now have three mixers, and we’ve moved downstairs into two large rooms for an actual factory now. There’s also a classroom in there as well, and we’ve built the confectionery range up and are now on our sixth bar variety. It’s just me making the chocolate, along with our learners – I didn’t go on any specific courses, but I did do a lot of research, and had some assistance in working out nutritional values, and I also had knowledge of hygiene requirements from my previous work.

Q: Do you have specific sustainability standards?
A: Everything is organic and sustainable – our beans are from Peru and sourced from a sustainable farm, where the farmers gain a cut of the profits, and our vanilla is also sourced sustainably. This is something that is very important, and I think there shouldn’t be businesses that are not focused on being sustainable.

Q: What technical or general business assistance have you had for the development of your operations?
A: We have worked with a Harrogate company called Ostle & Maillard, which does packaging for Bettys Tea Room for our own packaging, and we have a lady in the area who has created the designs for the wrapping – which include our landmarks, including the viaduct, theatre, and Christ Church parish church, and our logo in the centre, which we hoped would make our bars seem like they were all about being local.

Q: What do you enjoy most about your work, and outside of your role?
A: I enjoy the free range of creativity. I can walk into the chocolate factory one day, I can go in and say I want to make a new flavour for our series, and that’s something that our team is also able to do as well. I also really like the team that I work with – we all have the same ethos and feel that we want people to recognise that our learners are capable of in the same job roles as anyone else. Outside of work, I listen to a lot of music, I go to a lot of gigs and festivals, and like reading and writing. I love creating stories – which is why I love the creativity of chocolate making.