Cocoa To Thrill

Please don’t Melt!

If you're wondering how we shipped over 100 Cocoa To Thrill Chocolate Shoes into the desert - we're here for you!

"People Deliver Chocolate All Over The World...Right?"

When we received the call asking us to bring our Cocoa To Thrill Chocolate Shoes  to Arab Fashion Week, we did a little dance and jumped for joy. Arabia, how exotic, how beautiful, how…hot! In our chocolate celebration we neglected to consider the challenge ahead of us. In an attempt to comfort ourselves we placated ourselves with this “People deliver chocolate all over the world right, we can do this”. At this point we had no idea whether chocolate had ever been imported into Dubai or indeed who had ever done it.

We weren’t just taking bars of chocolate either, we were taking delicate, fragile, beautiful yes but extremely fragile chocolate shoes into the dessert. It wasn’t going to be easy, especially since our precious cargo hadn’t even been out of London let alone 4639.5 miles away.

Being the mavericks that we are, lead by an unperturbed boss lady, we ventured into the unknown and began lovingly producing our chocolate masterpieces one by one. We fielded countless questions about how we were going to make sure it wasn’t going to melt by smiling through the insanity, “People deliver chocolate all over the world” became our mantra, not chocolate shoes mind, but stop picking holes in our plan.

Channel 5's, The Wonderful World of Chocolate, watches the whole ordeal

This task in front of us was similar to when Richard Branson decides to do another epic but dangerous adventure. We love Richard Branson, so why not. However we added a little more danger into the mix when

Channel 5 contacted us and said they wanted to film us on this dangerous adventure, we did another chocolate dance, paused to think, “what if we can’t do it” and then relished the thrill, this was going to be more than a hot balloon ride.

Researching the problem with no time...

The research into how we were actually going to get over 100 chocolate shoes to Dubai didn’t actually start until most of the chocolate shoes for Fashion Week were completed. Some might see this as slightly risky business move, but don’t forget the mantra.

Our first thought was to put our chocolate shoes on a refrigerated plane, “they have those right?”. Tah dah, we’ve solved it. Of course, it’s not that simple. Access to resources on how to get our chocolate shoes onto a refrigerated plane was limited and no one was really able to tell us how exactly to do it. Shipping companies like Fed Ex and DHL provide this service but they expect you to be a massive company shipping huge refrigerated shipments a month, “Oh, that’s how people deliver chocolate all over the world”. We found that being a bespoke, small but perfectly formed company was not the best outfit to get international shipping done. Worst of all it took weeks to get to this conclusion, countless phone calls and dead ends and guess what, fashion week was only 2 weeks away. In our defence we only had 5 weeks to get over 100 chocolate shoes to Dubai, another chocolate madness we will save for another blog.

Work it out in an Uber

It was 10 days to go and our team was zipping to Chelsea in an Uber. We had to shoot an advert for the big screen at Fashion Week. We had only had 3 days to work on this, (another blog). Channel 5 were coming to film us and we still hadn’t found a plan to get over 100 shoes to the desert without melting. You’d think we’d be a little stressed. Our girl boss, Samona Williams,  loves a list, and she had a very long one in that Uber. The strategy was to phone as many third-party shipping companies as possible until someone could do it. Apparently she learnt this strategy from Bill Gates. She said, “It’s simple maths, you can try a 100 and get 100 no’s but 101th call will say yes."

Ten minutes away, fielding anxious calls from cast and crew and around 5 calls in, we got our answer. Thank you chocolate angels. You see, we had been approaching things a little too over the top, as is our general mood here at Cocoa To Thrill. Neil, the amazing refrigerated shipping expert at

Rhenus Logistics Liverpool

told us that we didn’t actually need to go on a refrigerated plane. Made sense, chocolate isn’t actually refrigerated, in fact the ideal temperature for our chocolate shoes and any chocolate for that matter is 12-15 degrees. “Oh, so we need temperature controlled, sounds expensive”. For those wondering, temperature controlled shipping does exist and usually used for medicines and can be temperature controlled within the degree in special boxes. These shipments are usually small and yes,  it is expensive. You can find out more here.

Thankfully Neil was a little more practical in his approach. Gel packs. “Gel packs? No surely they can’t keep the shipment cold enough in the dessert.” And further anxiety inducing in this conversation is that the shipment could not be delivered to the UAE in a day, as we had previously thought, it actually would take three days. Three days, surviving with just gel packs, impossible.

5 minutes to the ad shoot, the director can’t get into to the Fort Knox secure location (we’d tell you who lives there but we can’t). The rest of the crew are looking for props and we talking about gel packs and what seems like the longest shipping time in the world. Luckily for us, Neil was wise and experienced. He explained that the chocolate had to be packed a certain way and with the right amount of gel packs our chocolate shoes could easily be kept cold for three days, “I won’t tell you 100% they are not going to melt, but I haven’t had many casualties”. Thanks Neil super encouraging.

Neil Says

"To be honest the UK side wasn’t an issue and never worried me.  We made it clear to transport how fragile the shipment was and that we needed to handle with super care and attention.My main concern was initially the heat in Dubai.  We send shipments to Dubai pretty much on a weekly basis.  Most will travel frozen and we will pack with additional coolants to combat the extensive heat.  I then saw that all chocolate shoes were handmade with fancy decorations and pearls attached.  Upon looking at Cocoa’s Website I quickly realised how difficult the job in had was going to be.  I literally didn’t sleep for the next few days!"

In business, you have to take a certain amount of risk, especially when there’s no choice and your pulling into the gates of the filming location to the expectant faces of the crew. The Uber driver looks at us expectantly. “Oh we have to get out here? We’ll do it Neil”. This is how it went down. We jumped out of the car and were faced with the whole new problem of getting all the shots we needed, with no time, a channel 5 crew and the wrong lighting kit. If you’re interested to see how the ad turned out, click here.

How Do You Wrap and Package Chocolate Shoes?

Of course, the story didn’t end with a frenzied shoot day. Once we wrapped we realised that no-one had dealt with the fragility of shipping chocolate shoes. Chocolate yes, but chocolate shoes, that have delicate temperaments, no. We set about packing and packaging. There were reems of bubble wrap, there were late nights and disgusting stale sandwiches. There were kind family members and polystyrene beads in our hair,  all the time.

Refrigerated Chocolate Truck!

We worked like crazy and Neil sent us an amazing temperature controlled truck to pick up our very well wrapped chocolate shoes just 6 days before we were due to fly to Dubai. Channel 5 were on hand to shoot the whole heart wrenching experience, “It’s great telly”. Off  our precious chocolate shoes went rattling along the m25 to our pattering heartbeats.

The truck made its way on a 4 hour 20 minute journey, 207.6 miles to Manchester to meet Neil. There , our chocolate shoes bound for Arab Fashion Week in Dubai were packed with their gel packs on palettes. Once they were all packed up the shipment was huge, it weighed 54 kilos, which in shipping terms is not that much but the volume was over 190 kilos. Over 100 shoes went on a large shipping palette and an extra-large shipping box.

Neil Says

“After much discussions between myself and Cocoa To Thrill, I came up with a good idea to keep the chocolate in layers and separate each leg on the pallet with stanchions to give the pallet some strength and the chocolate would not be touching each other and the weight of the top layers not sat on the bottom layers which can cause unwanted damages.  Unfortunately the shipment came in much larger than anticipated.  Initially I thought it was an impossible take but once I had a few moments to take it all in and have a think I realised we had some box pallets in stock which enabled me to pack the shipment ready to export.  The chocolate shoes were already packed quite well by Samona and her team, a lot of time and effort from both companies have clearly gone into the packing of these very fragile shoes.  It allowed me to pack and separate into one large box pallet.  Shipment was packed and coolants placed on the top of the pallet to keep the chocolate nice and cool while in transit and more importantly when the shipment arrived into Dubai.”

This is how you ship chocolate

Our gorgeous and brave chocolate shoes  were packed in a matter of hours, with a whole lot of gel packs,  at a temperature of between 2-8 degrees Celsius and before we knew it, they were on their way to get on their first plane to Germany. Honestly it was like sending kids for their first day of school, excruciating, but you know you have to be brave. In these situations, it’s not a good idea to wonder if all your hard work will melt or break. Our Chocolate Executive Officer (CEO) was having none of it. There was packing to do, outfits to choose, press releases to write. There was no room for “If the shoes get there”, it was simply “when”.

To help with the heat, customs clearance was completed while our chocolate shoes were sat in Germany. We loved the forward thinking. What we didn’t love however was the fact that our chocolate shoes were split up in Germany. Only half of them arrived in Dubai while the others were stuck in Germany. If you’ve ever been separated from a loved one, you will know the sheer panic the was filling the office. Neil was as chill as the box they were travelling in. “Don’t worry” he assured us, “this happens all the time”. To this day we are not quite sure if this is true or whether there was a calm duck frantically treading water beneath the surface kind of situation but thankfully, the next day, the two boxes were reunited in Dubai. The refresh button on the tracking  browser was a little overused during those nail biting 8 hours.

It was heart wrenching, nail biting, chocolate madness all captured by Channel 5 for you all to enjoy. Thankfully our beautiful chocolate shoes arrived in Dubai without melting and not one breakage. "People deliver chocolate all over the world, right". Chocolate magic thinking, isn’t that something. 

Were we crazy?

Channel 5’s,

The Wonderful World of Chocolate made its debut this month and the onslaught of Willy Wonka Style Chocolate images did not disappoint. There were glistening chocolate bar shots, satisfying lines of chocolate pieces and

Cocoa To Thrill Chocolate Shoes!

It was Valentine’s day, when we first got the call from Channel 5. One of the busiest days in the chocolate industry and it was well, a little busy. We had just been told that we had beaten off the major chocolate companies to have our chocolate shoes featured at

Arab Fashion Week in Dubai in just over a month and there was no time for dinner dates. The call came pretty much out of the blue. Channel 5  had no idea what we were doing and it just so happened they caught us at the perfect time for their filming schedule.

Perfect timing? Well yes and no. You see, Cocoa To Thrill was about to do something huge, unprecedented really at this point and we really hadn’t figured out how we were going to get it done. Now we had added a film crew to an already crazy schedule who were going to watch our every move in getting over 100 chocolate shoes to Dubai. If we failed, we were going to do it in front of millions of people watching. Thrilling!

First Day On Set Nerves

Our first day filming with Channel 5 was something of a production. We weren’t just filming a show, we physically had to get a lot of work done and there really wasn’t time for interruptions. We had to be incredibly organised if we were going to show viewers exactly what we were doing but also actually do those tasks that we had to accomplish. We couldn’t just strut around in heels all day and put on lipstick, we actually had to make chocolate heels and lipsticks. On day one of shooting we had to get over a 100 chocolate shoes and lipsticks painted and packed plus finalise the designs for the chocolate shoes that were heading to Arab Fashion Week and we were literally weeks away.

Our epic showcase was helped along by the amazing, super calm and fun director at Channel 5, Al. He was just downright cuddly and his demeanour put the whole team at ease whilst we figured out how to get everything done. Our Chocolate Executive Officer, Samona Williams, calmly sipped tea during and in between takes, partly because it was absolutely freezing in the Cocoa To Thrill studio and partly because, well she loves a cuppa. The production crew also had to factor in plenty of breaks so that Samona could rest and hydrate to manage her physical condition. Other than the tight schedule, we pretty much had a laugh. Well as much of a laugh as you can have with a looming deadline and no completed chocolate shoes.

Can you eat our Chocolate Shoes?

The next shoot day was out of the office as we were shooting our new advert. So Channel 5 were shooting us…shooting an ad  in a kind of Russian Doll scenario. The Ad, was a last minute request from the Arab Fashion Council and we were told that it would be showcased on the big screen throughout Arab Fashion Week. The crew, cast and storyboard were assembled in lightening time and tah dah, before we knew it, we were in a posh Chelsea apartment with both our crew and the Channel 5 crew. It was a squeeze but we didn’t expect anything less from prime London real estate. To see the advert click here

On this shoot it was the first time that our Girlboss was going to see a completed chocolate shoe eaten. Literally bitten into. On that subject, we are often asked “Can you eat it” when people look at our chocolate shoes. The answer is of course you can, our chocolate shoes are to be eaten or admired but honestly the truth is, “as long as you don’t eat it in front of our CEO.” Forget shooting the highs and lows of trying to get over 100 chocolate shoes to Arab Fashion week, shooting our CEO’s reaction to seeing a chocolate shoe eaten makes for some Gogglebox worthy telly.  So much artistry, precision, and hard work goes into our chocolate shoes that it’s a pain well understood.

How Do You Ship 100 Chocolate Shoes to the Desert?

Another highlight shooting with Channel 5 was the day the truck left with all the chocolate shoes bound for Dubai. This was probably one of the most nerve-wracking days. After weeks of hard work and attention, the chocolate babies weren’t just leaving home, they were going travelling across the world. For weeks, our eyes had been on those chocolate shoes every step of the way. Each one had been lovingly created and treated with kid gloves. Now they were about to be transited on busy roads and hectic planes, we were dealing with a lot of emotions. The amazing Hariett was directing this time and documented the whole ordeal with a keen eye for detail. The crew attracted a small audience but this felt comforting as if there was a comradery amongst strangers willing our chocolate shoes to make it Dubai safely.Read more about the highs and lows of shipping chocolate shoes to Arab Fashion Week here.

The Wonderful World Of Chocolate

Channel 5’s, The Wonderful World of Chocolate,  is a menagerie of chocolate stories told from the perspective of the chocolate giants and the artisans. It focuses on the delight and wonder of chocolate and gives you a unique glimpse into the minds of us chocolate alchemists that bring joy to the world. Thank you Elephant Studios and Channel 5 for documenting our unique chocolate shoes journey, it’s been emotional. You can check out the show here.