Russell & Atwell fresh chocolate venture gains BBC Dragons’ Den investment

Two dynamic entrepreneurs emerged successful from BBC’s Dragons’ Den TV series with the pick of a clean sweep of five offers to propel their confectionery venture to the next level, writes Neill Barston.

Steve Russell and Giles Atwell set up their fresh chocolate firm round the corner from Cadbury, in Birmingham, back in 2020, with a total of 30 years of industry experience between them.

In an episode just screened on the BBC, the pair selected an offer from Dragons Peter Jones and Steve Bartlett a 10% share in the business each, in return for an £90,000 investment to expand the business.

Reflecting on their achievement that will see Russell & Atwell gain key commercial backing, Giles said: “The ‘long life’ chocolate bar was invented at the start of the 20th century, but most homes have had fridges since the ‘50s, so whilst fresh milk, pasta and desserts have all migrated over into the fridge, chocolate has been left, quite literally, on the shelf. It’s high time fresh chocolate became the go-to standard for quality, simplicity of ingredients and indulgence.”

Launched as an e-commerce business in 2020, the team hand prepares five varieties of fresh chilled chocolates from their Birmingham kitchen in Bournville. This includes Creamy Milk, Scrumptious Salted Caramel, Cracking Creamy Hazelnut, Smooth Dark and Extra Rich Dark Chocolates are made with delicious, high quality and sustainable ingredients including responsibly sourced cocoa, fresh organic British cream, butter and wildflower honey.

Chocolate lovers can opt for letterbox-friendly pouches (from £13.50), elegant refillable glass jars (from £30 for two; from £12 per 180g eco refill) or a regular Russell & Atwell subscription (from £50).

On their BBC appearance, Giles said: “We see no reason why we can’t get to £50 or £100million in a few years…the last corporate job I did, I took the business from £50 to £100million, and we back ourselves to be able to hit those numbers, and more.”

Russell & Atwell offered the Dragons 9% of the business for £90,000 in investment, telling them, “30% of pasta is fresh and it’s a £6.5billion chocolate market, if half of that market could be fresh in twenty 20 years’ time, that’s an enormous opportunity.”

With Giles’ 100 years family history in the business of chocolate and their shared experience in global chocolate corporations – the friends and business partners pitched their fresh chilled chocolate concept and detailed their extensive experience before opening their fridge to sample the chocolates.

As the company’s Head Chocolatier, Steve passed out the chocolates to the Dragons, and the taste immediately went down a storm; though Dragon Deborah Meaden noted the present lack of a vegan option.

After an hour and a half of discussion around margins, manufacturing and costs, and whether the corporate veterans had what it takes to move into the entrepreneurial world, new Dragon and Happy Sexy Millionaire author, Steve Bartlett, made the first offer of £45,000 for 15% of the business, wanting to team up with other Dragons to further the business; this triggered an offer from each of the Dragons, with Peter Jones singling out Steven Bartlett as an ideal partner to share the investment to further the direct to consumer business. Steve and Giles went to the wall and announced, “we’re too far apart; we don’t want to work for you, we’ve had 30 years of corporate careers, we want to work for ourselves.”

It was a tough decision, but eventually Russell & Atwell set a deal with Steven Bartlett and Peter Jones, offering them each 10% of the business for the full £90,000 investment. With Steven on the board of Huel and co-Founder of social media and marketing agency, Social Chain, Steve and Giles were eager to learn from his social and digital expertise. Peter Jones’ experience was an attractive counterpart, with his more traditional high street knowledge, which will also be hugely valuable to Russell & Atwell in taking the business, who currently sell online and via luxury delis, and into supermarkets nationwide.

Giles added: “We’re blown away by having five offers We came into the Den open-minded as to who we wanted, but the five offers blew us away, and gave us quite a dilemma. In the end, we chose the ‘dream team of on & off-line – Steven and Peter – and we haven’t looked back since!”