MIDAS SHARE TIPS: There's sweet success and rich rewards on offer if you check in at Hotel Chocolat

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With just a fortnight until Christmas, thoughts are inevitably turning to food, drink, treats and gifts. Hotel Chocolat covers all four categories.

The company specialises in premium chocolate, made at its manufacturing facility in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. 

It also sells alcoholic drinks, such as cocoa-infused gin and vodka, specialist teas and coffees and a range of chocolate-centred gifts and treats, including personalised chocolate boxes, hampers and Yule logs.

Innovation: Co-founder Angus Thirlwell is determined to keep creating new products to keep customers interested

The group listed on AIM in May, the shares are 264¼p and they should increase in price as the business expands both in the UK and overseas.

Hotel Chocolat traces its roots back to the late 1980s, when Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris started delivering chocolate to businesses, designed as gifts for customers and staff. 

Their company, Choc Express, did well but they soon realised the name did not suit the image they wanted to convey, so they came up with Hotel Chocolat – to give an impression of escapism and sophistication.

Today, the company has 91 stores and a thriving online division. It continues to provide gift products to businesses, it sells through John Lewis and supplies chocolate nibbles to BA. 

Throughout, the emphasis has been on premium chocolate, made with more cocoa and less sugar than conventional brands.

Thirlwell and Harris are also determined to keep creating new products so that customers remain interested and even excited by what they see.

 To make sure the quality remains high and the stock continues to evolve, the firm's manufacturing facility is responsible for all the chocolate it produces.

 Thirlwell and Harris have another way of testing quality, too. Back in 1997, when the group was an internet only business, they began a chocolate tasting club, where members pay a subscription and receive a different box of goods every month. 

Each box includes new flavours and club members vote with their taste buds.

Working hard: The chocolate company's plantation in St Lucia

Approved recipes are sold across the group and poor performers are ditched. As the club now has 70,000 members, they are a reliable gauge of public opinion.

The club is just one of Hotel Chocolat's distinctive features. Most retail chains start out by opening physical stores and develop an online business afterwards. Thirlwell and Harris took the opposite approach. 

First, they sold chocolate to businesses, then they sold to consumers online and only once they were established did they begin to open physical stores, launching the first one in 2004.

Inspiration: Hotel Chocolat's Yule log is based on a 3D scan of a real log

The manufacturing site followed a few years later and the group also bought a 250-year-old cocoa plantation in St Lucia, which now produces the raw material for Hotel Chocolat's finest goods, described as its rare and vintage range.

Recently, the group has started to open cafes, where customers can sip drinks designed to go with chocolate, as well as buy the firm's other products. This steady, long-term approach has enabled Thirlwell and Harris to create a successful business, built to last.

The duo are passionate about producing top chocolate – this year's Yule log, for example, was created by scouring woodlands for the perfect log, producing a 3D scan of it and using that as the basis for the chocolate log.

 But they are also commercially astute. In the year to June, sales rose 12 per cent to £91million and underlying pre-tax profits soared by 181 per cent to £8.2million. 

This year, analysts predict further strong growth with sales expected to rise to £112 million and profits to £11.1million. 

Responsible: To make sure the quality remains high and the stock continues to evolve, the firm's manufacturing facility is responsible for all the chocolate it produces

The group is investing most of its cash in growth but it is likely to pay a dividend from 2018. 

Thirlwell and Harris still own a third of the business each, so they are more aware than most bosses of the need to keep investors happy.

Britain used to boast several leading chocolate brands, most of which have now been sold to foreign owners. 

Hotel Chocolat is proud of its heritage and is determined to learn from others' mistakes, focusing resolutely on quality and customer taste. 

The group is concentrating on the UK for now, but it has opened a store in Copenhagen and a boutique hotel on its St Lucia estate.

Over time, there are plans to expand further overseas, but this will be done gradually, testing demand online first.

Hotel Chocolat is relatively resistant to economic uncertainty, as its products range in price from £1 to £165.

The group also benefits from making its chocolate in-house, which is more cost-efficient than outsourcing and enables it to respond more nimbly to peaks and troughs in demand.

Midas verdict: Hotel Chocolat has performed well since flotation at 148p. It is a well-run company, whose founders are committed to success. 

At 264¼p, the shares are a long-term buy.