Wellington Chocolate Factory's big move - and bet
Friday, 29 May 2026
Craft chocolate producer Wellington Chocolate Factory has adopted a bigger production facility in a move to help it keep up with demand, ahead of its launch into grocery retailing.
The Eva Street business is set to relocate its factory equipment to a new location in Newtown, while keeping its central city site as a café and venuefor chocolate tours, tastings and events.
General manager Matt Williams said Wellington Chocolate Factory, which makes annual revenue of between $1 million and $3m was “entering its teenage years” now - focused on scaling and expansion.
The company, which up until recently only sold its chocolate in Wellington, is set to begin selling its bean-to-bar chocolates produced from cacao sourced from the Pacific Islands in supermarkets nationwide.
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Williams said the new production and dispatch facility would allow the company to expand into grocery and to price its supermarket blocks at under $10, compared with between $12-13 for a similar sized block of craft chocolate typically.
These would initially be available in up to 150 supermarkets, with intentions to expand this out to all supermarkets across the country over time.
“Craft chocolate until now has been treated kind of like a special treat or gift, mainly because of pricing; kind of like fine wine, but with our new range we’re trying to move craft chocolate into more of an accessible space.”
Wellington Chocolate Factory is expected to be fully operational in the new Newtown site by the end of July.
It is about double the size of the Eva St location at 400sqm, allowing the business to increase production significantly, said Williams.
“When we started all our processes were done by hand but over time, as we've scaled, we've brought in more machinery, and bigger machinery, which drives efficiency, and over time we’ll be putting in greater automation.
“For the last five years, it's tough going for everybody across the country, including ourselves, navigating Covid and various things that have happened in Wellington, but we've continued to grow, and we've got good foundations in this new location to push for further growth.”
Williams said moving into the new factory would also allow the company to help further grow a premium cocoa industry within the Pacific.
Most of its cacao is sourced from Vanuatu, and it wants to source more beans from Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
The company was trying to “champion the inherent nature of the cocoa bean” from Pacific Island nations, which gave its chocolate a taste point of different to other options on the market, he said.
“The chocolate market is always looking for interesting and different chocolates, and the Pacific is unique in terms of some of the seasons of cocoa and the flavours - it’s started to get noticed across the world.”
According to Ken Research, New Zealand’s chocolate market is valued at US$130 million, growing in recent years due to demand for premium and artisan and health-focused products. The craft segment within that is growing at 12% annually.
Despite the cost of living crisis, the rising costs of fuel denting consumer demand and the increasing costs of ingredients, packaging and other input costs for business, Williams said Wellington Chocolate Factory’s sales and revenue continued to grow.
It had experienced double-digit sales growth in the past four years, he said.
“Rather than buying the big ticket items, chocolate like this is still something they want to enjoy.”
Williams said there were further exciting plans in the works, with the new factory and supermarket range what he called “phase one” for expansion.
“Short term the focus is on the new supermarket range and redeveloping industry, and making Eva St a exciting location for people visit.”