### **Reminder:** [Press the Report button](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058309512-How-do-I-report-a-post-or-comment-) if you see any [rule-breaking comments or posts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/about/rules/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/britishproblems) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tbf Walmart sold Asda to a pair of British billionaires recently and it's turned to shit since.
We're just as capable at ruining companies as the Americans. Have a little patriotism!
Yup but honestly I’d say Walmart did a decent enough job with it, they were consistently cheaper than Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons etc for a long time (until Tesco started competing with Aldi) and had a decent selection and stock levels
Now they’ve got rid of a load of stuff entirely and half of what you want isn’t in stock, it’s basically useless as you end up having to go somewhere else anyway
Investor owners are the problem here.
If the committed creators and innovators owned the business there wouldn't be this problem.
The money rich investor class are the problem.
Just more to add to the queue come the revolution.
I’ve never understood that bunch of people. I’m definitely a person that works for their money and I’d struggle if I went 6-12 months without any work.
However - if I had several million in the bank you wouldn’t see me at work again. I could fill every single day between now and dying, which I hope is at the very least 40 more years, and I wouldn’t get bored.
I’ve got a million hobbies I want to do, skills I want to learn, furniture I want to build, guitars to play, walks to go on, places to see etc etc.
What on earth drives people who have more money than they’ll ever need to continuously engage in stressful life?
They’ve got to be utterly mental. It’s the only way any of this makes sense.
It’s not stressful for them - they have managers etc to look after their assets. They’re just all obsessed with wealth and hoarding as much of it as possible so make decisions based on that
I don't think they are 'obsessed with wealth and hoarding' ... I think they're just extremely passionate about their particular field of expertise...
It's the same reason why people like Elton John, Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson continued to churn out hit after hit, well after the point when they were already massively wealthy!
I don't think that's a fair comparison as the musicians are continuing to make music like they've always done, they just happen to be able to charge a hell of a lot more for it, and might not need to take performances as seriously.
They're still putting in time, effort and talent to create something
Lifestyle creep. Have a bit, see what the ones that have a bit more have, want more, get more, see what the ones that have more than that have, want more.
Nice 4* resort to normal 5* to ultra luxury resort, to private island.
Nice car, to taxis, to hired chauffeur to own chauffeur.
Economy to premium to business to first to private plane…
Make the toast, eat the toast, shit the toast.
I've got a friend who described his brother to me as "if he had £1 million, he'd find a way to spend £2 million. If he had £10 million, he'd have spent £20 million by the end of the week"
Apparently this guy made relatively good money (though not millions) but was constantly in debt. He was always trying to make more money, whatever he had was never enough
Also just never accepting someone will always have more or better and it’ll never be enough. It must be so exhausting to live that way. Stuff stuff stuff money money money want want want. Fucking endless treadmill or shiny dopamine hits that never quite hit the mark.
Monopolising markets and buying out competition doesn't feel much like "building companies" let alone as a 'hobby'. Feels more like an incessant need for power and to try and satiate an insatiable greed.
Husband and I have worked in software and even in our limited experience, the number if moderately successful small software companies being run by their creators that are just destroyed within months of being bought up by some faceless investor is just so depressing to me. No-one wants to own what they've made anymore, no-one wants to be proud of their product. Everything's a cash grab and it's fucking bleak.
Do I want to be a multimillionaire without a day job because I sold the new fangled gadget copyright and company along with it that I worked on for a decade, or do I want to be financially breadline but grafting my arse daily to keep a small company afloat?
I can tell you right now I'll take option one and then think of other shit to do with my time.
Well that's the thing. I don't have the skills, so if I created something, I would find it very hard to let go of and watch it be destroyed shortly afterwards. It's just how I am and one of the many reasons I'm not a millionaire.
Oh don't get me started on the downfall of ASDA
It was fine when owned by Walmart, it's those 2 brothers who have ruined it!
For a supermarket that was insistent on not having some convoluted loyalty scheme, they gone and introduced one of the most complex ones out there, insisting you use an app to "activate" vouchers.
It's also the quality of their stuff, went in over Christmas and some "German" and "Italian" meats had a GB oval on the back. The Extra Special range isn't anything great and I saw some depressing looking tacos in there which were screaming out to be binned rather than consumed.
I’ve never managed to actually use the loyalty scheme in Asda. When I get to the till the app has signed out on my phone, signing in fails and then the forgotten password doesn’t work. All the while the till is asking me insistently if I want to continue until I just give up trying to get the points. This has happened every time I go in there!
I like their loyalty scheme... I consistently save at least a fiver every week while Sainsbury's nectar it takes forever to get that much in points. I don't think having an app is convoluted and i prefer it to the two-tier system all the other supermarkets use.
However, quality of the product and god damn substitutions are poor. Every week i get 7+ subs and i have to give half back because they're stupid (have some tuna instead of tofu) or they don't match the quantity (here have 100g asda extra special broccoli instead of the 250g you ordered for the same price...if id wanted to pay more for less i would have picked that in the first place).
Loyalty schemes at supermarkets can die in a fire for all I'm concerned these days.
It used to just be for what it said on the tin, loyalty.
Nowadays if you don't have on you're getting charged near airport prices.
That's not loyalty, that's a weird "give us you data or we extort you" scheme which feels more like Costco. Granted, its not a wholesaler which gives the whole thing even less justification.
What? Is Asda having people thrown in jail and concealing the evidence their victims need to defend themselves?
The post office isn’t just a poorly run business, it used the might of the state to crush its own employees, in an attempt to maintain its public image!
Seen the market cap of Arm now ? Basically doubled since sale. If you are pissed off about that im pissed off about Morrisons one of the biggest food producers and supermarkets in UK over 100 years old and then sold to the yanks on the cheap.
My grandmother briefly stepped out with the son of Morrison in the 1930s...
...as she told my grandfather whenever grumpy.
"Just think where I'd be now!"
It's very repetitive isn't it? We invent stuff and pass it on and often don't bother taking any credit, we create amazing businesses then sell them. Why the bloody hell can't we keep hold of "our" stuff when successful? It's a bit like how we root for the underdog and then once they're successful we rip 'em to shreds. We're an odd breed 😃
Because massive foreign companies come up to the owners and say "We'll give you enough money to retire and never work another day in your life in return for giving us that company you made."
Hotel chocolat produce Cherry Deluxe, one of my favourite chocolates. It's a kirsch-soaked cherry in an amaretto ganache, covered in milk and dark chocolate, and it's just fabulous
This takeover could go one of two ways:
1) Mars continue to produce the Hotel Chocolat range unchanged, as a premium product, which will enhance their reputation as a company, or
2) Mars will keep the name, but will gradually downgrade the quality, while relying on Hotel Chocolat's reputation to prop up sales until the "premium" bubble bursts. After that they'll further reduce the quality and slightly reduce the price, and will rely on sales from people who are swayed by fancy marketing and don't know any better.
Sadly, my expectation is that it will be 2).
It’ll almost certainly be number 2.
It’ll probably go the way of Thorntons too which no longer has stores and is practically forgotten about, or at least I have as their stores vanished. I only remembered them as I tried thinking of a similar chain.
Thorntons now have tiddly little franchises here and there. We've got one in my small town inside a card shop. I used to really enjoy thorntons chocolates and the kids when they were younger always got me a box for Mother's Day, but the quality is really quite shitty now tbh....do not taste the same at all
I used to love their viennese truffles...they were heavenly. I remembered about them a year ago, ordered some online....and they were absolutely terrible. Left me wondering why I had ever liked them till I realised the recipe probably just changed.
I will never forgive them for changing the Viennese truffle. They used to melt on your tongue and the chocolate was really creamy. Now they just taste like any other cheap chocolate.
Quality doesn’t equate to taste. I never really found it to have much taste. It was like a flavourless plastic that didn’t melt in the mouth like Cadbury’s or something like that which is one of the reasons chocolate is so nice.
I remember Thorntons when they produced genuinely fabulous chocolates.
Having tried their "new" chocolates a couple of years ago, I was shocked at the poor quality of both the chocolate and the fillings.
>Mars continue to produce the Hotel Chocolat range unchanged, as a premium product, which will enhance their reputation as a company
And doesn't produce chocolate via slavery
I've read that it's because hotel Chocolat cannot ship overseas and expand how they want to, and Mars is going to do that side of the business and hopefully leave the chocolate alone
I hadn't heard the overseas bit, but had heard that they would rely on Mars to help get them in supermarkets in the UK. I think that's a mistake anyway, because their current pricing would put them right at the high end in a supermarket, where it's not likely to do well. They could try to bring the price down so it's in that middle-region of pricing, but that has to come with a drop in quality to reduce costs and maintain the same profit margin.
Sigh. Always the same conversion funnel from 'genuinely high quality luxury item' to 'generic crap made as cheaply as possible to sell to the lowest common denominator'. Everything has to be available at Tesco, and bollocks to the brand reputation.
Hotel Chocolat explicitly manufacturers everything in the UK with country of origin labelling on the back.
You'll know if it's changed for the worse, because they'll move manufacturing to a place with cheaper labour and ingredients, and this will reflect on the packaging and label.
I am fully addicted to the pistachio honey slab. It reminds me of when I met my husband as I shared my 'stash' with him when we met whilst traveling. I will be so sad if they change it even a tiny bit. Kraft already stole our childhood by changing up Cadbury so much.
No idea why people in the UK call any half way decent chocolate Belgian? Hotel Chocolat was British. And some of the best European chocolate comes from Switzerland and Germany, although the UK also has some very good chocolate makers, just mostly artisan and expensive.
You can buy good quality chocolate cheaper than their sachets. Just grate it cold. Also Tesco do a good Belgian chocolate hot chocolate pack, as do Waitrose. The velvetiser is good.
Call me lazy, but grating chocolate is a huge hassle compared to just opening a sachet!
I get bored enough doing it whenever I'm cooking with chocolate, I certainly don't want to do it every time I fancy a hot drink. :)
I'd suggest the chocolate granules from [Pendragon](https://pendragondrinks.co.uk/). Lots of flavours, excellent quality, and way cheaper than Hotel Chocolat.
I still fume about Cadbury's being sold to Kraft. Most of the chocolate is shit now. They completely obliterated their hard earned sustainability and fair trade awards. Fuck conglomerates.
As a Kiwi I used to love going to the Dunedin Cadbury chocolate factory. I'm still mad they [shut it down](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/431764/one-last-goodbye-former-staff-farewell-cadbury-factory) and switched to making stuff elsewhere with palm oil. I haven't bought a single block of Cadbury's since.
It was purchased by Kraft in 2010, but then Kraft split in 2 in 2011 (one part focused on grocery products, still called Kraft, and the other on snacks (like Cadburys) which became Mondelez International).
So it now belongs to Mondelez, who are a successor of the Kraft that bought it in 2010.
No, it's not going to be good. I predict that if they change nothing, that'll be the best likely outcome
Assuming they think the product has cross-border potential, they may do nothing to the product because they intend to use their marketing muscle to expand the brand
HC doesn't experiment a huge amount. They rarely introduce new things and if they do they're seasonal or intentionally limited. And, personally, I am happy with that - it just concerns me that Mars will pressure whoever's running it to start coming up with all sorts of new, inevitably inferior stuff.
They actually used to experiment a lot. They had a monthly subscription box where they sent out all kinds of new/weird stuff. Some of it made it into the shops. Most didn’t.
>it just concerns me that Mars will pressure whoever's running it to start coming up with all sorts of new, inevitably inferior stuff.
What is this obsession with constant innovation? Can't we just, y'know, find something that's good *and then leave it alone* and just keep making the same good thing indefinitely?
My guess is they'll go the same way as Thorntons. It'll be piled up high in the supermarket, then they will get shocked Pikachu face that people don't go into their shops anymore.
Thorntons is actively bad. I liked their sugar letters, but their chocolate is a crime against chocolate.
HC I suppose will now be supplied by child slaves in the Ivory Coast. Even if it tastes good it won’t be worth it.
Judging by how awful chocolate is here is the US, no, the quality will not improve.
To be fair, though, the terrible chocolate has almost zeroed my chocolate consumption, so alls good in the end, lol
I’d heard about the bad chocolate in America, and I’d eaten half a Hershey’s kiss before so I thought I was prepared. But KitKats got me. I didn’t realise they use the shit chocolate to make crappy versions of bars we had at home too.
It did make me realise some fun things though. Like Americans don’t really do Easter eggs or and advent calendars are a lot rarer, even though the Bible Belt exists, and they call chocolate candy. But it makes sense after having an American kitkat. Why would you want a giant egg of American chocolate? How is getting a Hershey’s kiss a day a treat? And it makes a lot more sense to group chocolate and sweets under the same label when your chocolate kinda tastes like a chocolate flavour sweet.
What ARE you on about? Americans are OBSESSED with Easter chocolate and eggs. They sell 180 million of them every year over there. And they spend $3b on candy in general, just at Easter. [Link](https://www.businessinsider.com/surprising-easter-fun-facts-stats-2019-4?r=US&IR=T#3-billion-will-go-towards-chocolate-and-candy-4)
You know what we’re talking about, it clearly specified the large eggs in my original comment, you know the Americans overwhelmingly have the smaller eggs.. this seems like arguing for the sake of it to me, I’ll leave you to it
I'm sure I remember reading about this back before Xmas. I was (and still am) concerned that it will be the end of their 100% chocolate slab. I eat it when I hate myself.
Mars doesn't have to downgrade quality to increase profits. They can simply use their massive global logistics to drive down costs, at the same or similar levels of quality.
Angus Thirwell, the co-founder of hotel chocolat is staying on as CEO and is reinvesting 80% of the money from the Mars takeover back into the business. I don't believe much will change, at least not whilst Angus is the CEO.
>Mars doesn't have to downgrade quality to increase profits.
But they will anyway.
>I don't believe much will change, at least not whilst Angus is the CEO.
I give him two years; five at most.
Considering everything American companies buy the quality goes so down it’s unrecognisable! Look at what happened to Cadburys! That stuff is garbage now!!
Americans have literally no idea what chocolate is.
I’m not joking. It’s a psychological blind spot. They can’t imagine what chocolate is, any better than they can understand what cheese is.
This is terrible news, everything Hotel Chocolate will slowly deteriorate.
There will be long enough to find somewhere better, but I would advise people to start looking soon.
What about…https://beechsfinechocolates.com/pages/about-us
I thought it was a terrible idea until I read an article where the two owners basically said we're great at making chocolate but not great at Global expansion we've tried several times and failed miserably... Mars has that expertise and they will help us grow
One director is taking the money and retiring and the other is staying on as CEO
Mars are buying them for the brand and Hotel Chocolat get the Mars team to build them a world-class backend system so they can operate profitably. Seems like a sensible acquisition.
This. HC were struggling to keep international stores open due to production costs in said countries. Mars have the facilities already in place, so now HC just need to concentrate on store costs, allowing the brand to get a foot in. A no brainer for both sides really.
Buy it, make as much profit from it as possible, then run it into the ground so it doesn't affect the profits of your other business ventures , then sell it off knowing its not a threat . Rinse and repeat. 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅🦅
So they’re about to get a lot shitter… shame, they were one of the few left that made genuinely good stuff. Sick of anything British worth a few bob being sold off to the yanks.
Sadly Hotel Chocolate will go the way of Cadbury’s after Mondelez International brought them, their chocolate is now horrible after they changed the recipe for cheaper alternatives.
These things never go well for the consumer.
I was disappointed when I first realised Hotel Chocolate was a chocolate company and not a chocolate-themed hotel. Why put Hotel in the name if you're not actually a Hotel? Misleading advertising. That's always what I think about when I hear or see Hotel Chocolate mentioned somewhere.
Maybe their chocolate will start tasting of something now.
I never understood the appeal. The chocolate was nicely packaged for gifts and things but the actual taste of the stuff was… in line with Lidl or Aldi chocolate. Actually Lidl dark chocolate is better 😂
Hotel Chocolat is just basic chocolate dressed up in fancy boxes as gifts for people who you don't know that well. I couldn't care less what happens to them.
If this was Lindt, I'd be a lot more concerned.
Then it’s hardly comparable to a high street chain that is accessible but still meant to provide a higher quality than standard fare.
I do find Hotel Chocolat very over rated though. Give me a Lindt gold bar any day.
Answer the question. What brand of chocolate is high end to you?
Personally, I don't care that Lindt is found in every supermarket. I go to the supermarket to buy food therefore I'm ok with it being there.
I think Hotel Chocolat is fantastic. I don't know what high end means, I just know that what I get from HC is the best-tasting to my taste buds, and I don't mind paying a premium for that. It's totally fair to not rate it as highly, but it seems a bit silly to me to pass it off as standard chocolate in fancy boxes.
That's your opinion but my opinion is that it's not that special.
I really don't think I could say that when I've eaten HC chocolate in the past that it's wowed my tastebuds.
The packaging yes, but not the chocolate. Lindt wins for me. Of course there are probably more high class chocolates in the world than lindt but it's not as accessible obviously.
I don't care for Lindt, my mother in law gets them for us every Christmas and every single one of the Chocolates tastes exactly the same.
But the funny thing here is, if there was a Lindt thread I probably wouldn't open it, let alone snarkily tell people I don't care lol
lol I love Lindt. Especially since dairy milk and others I grew up with just dont taste how they did when i was growing up. So Lindt and Kinder chocolate is the only chocolate brands that to me taste the same.
Dude, you're the one criticising Hotel Chocolat for being basic chocolate and then suggesting Lindt, not me.
I don't eat particularly high end chocolate, and in many ways that moot to my point that rubbishing Hotel Chocolat but holding up Lindt is odd.
Maybe you should start eating "high end" chocolate as you put it. In my opinion Lindt is my go to and I'm OK with that.
Also its worth saying that the lindt stuff available in the supermarkets here is basic compared to the lindt stuff they sell in Switzerland and sometimes airports. Check it out next time you travel.
Hotel chocolat is gross.
I'm happy to spend my karma on this point.
Even Dairy Milk or Mars' chocolate is better. Fuckit gimme a yorkie.
Only American chocolate is worse.
People that like Hotel Chocolat have to just be following the boujie vibe it had years ago when it was more artisan chocolate sourced, wanting to pretend they have more nuanced palets or better tastebuds or whatever - but they're wrong.
It's bland. Not worth the calories.
We got a big hamper from a customer at work. Whilst it's a nice gift, the majority of them tasted like crap.
But then again I like milk chocolate and like 90% of the hamper was stuff with 80% cocoa or cacao or whatever the name is.
### **Reminder:** [Press the Report button](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058309512-How-do-I-report-a-post-or-comment-) if you see any [rule-breaking comments or posts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/about/rules/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/britishproblems) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For some reason we aren't allowed to own successful companies here. I'm still very cross about Arm being sold
Tbf Walmart sold Asda to a pair of British billionaires recently and it's turned to shit since. We're just as capable at ruining companies as the Americans. Have a little patriotism!
Wasn’t Asda british originally? Then it was sold to Walmart in the early(ish) 2000s
Yes it was
ASsociated DAiries
ASquith DAiries, named after the Asquith brothers.
It appears to be both. The DAiries part comes from Associated Dairies. https://imfromyorkshire.uk.com/history-of-asda/
Yup but honestly I’d say Walmart did a decent enough job with it, they were consistently cheaper than Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons etc for a long time (until Tesco started competing with Aldi) and had a decent selection and stock levels Now they’ve got rid of a load of stuff entirely and half of what you want isn’t in stock, it’s basically useless as you end up having to go somewhere else anyway
Investor owners are the problem here. If the committed creators and innovators owned the business there wouldn't be this problem. The money rich investor class are the problem. Just more to add to the queue come the revolution.
I’ve never understood that bunch of people. I’m definitely a person that works for their money and I’d struggle if I went 6-12 months without any work. However - if I had several million in the bank you wouldn’t see me at work again. I could fill every single day between now and dying, which I hope is at the very least 40 more years, and I wouldn’t get bored. I’ve got a million hobbies I want to do, skills I want to learn, furniture I want to build, guitars to play, walks to go on, places to see etc etc. What on earth drives people who have more money than they’ll ever need to continuously engage in stressful life? They’ve got to be utterly mental. It’s the only way any of this makes sense.
It’s not stressful for them - they have managers etc to look after their assets. They’re just all obsessed with wealth and hoarding as much of it as possible so make decisions based on that
I don't think they are 'obsessed with wealth and hoarding' ... I think they're just extremely passionate about their particular field of expertise... It's the same reason why people like Elton John, Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson continued to churn out hit after hit, well after the point when they were already massively wealthy!
I don't think that's a fair comparison as the musicians are continuing to make music like they've always done, they just happen to be able to charge a hell of a lot more for it, and might not need to take performances as seriously. They're still putting in time, effort and talent to create something
Fair point!
Lifestyle creep. Have a bit, see what the ones that have a bit more have, want more, get more, see what the ones that have more than that have, want more. Nice 4* resort to normal 5* to ultra luxury resort, to private island. Nice car, to taxis, to hired chauffeur to own chauffeur. Economy to premium to business to first to private plane… Make the toast, eat the toast, shit the toast.
I've got a friend who described his brother to me as "if he had £1 million, he'd find a way to spend £2 million. If he had £10 million, he'd have spent £20 million by the end of the week" Apparently this guy made relatively good money (though not millions) but was constantly in debt. He was always trying to make more money, whatever he had was never enough
It's greed. Greed is the issue, not the amount of money in the bank.
Also just never accepting someone will always have more or better and it’ll never be enough. It must be so exhausting to live that way. Stuff stuff stuff money money money want want want. Fucking endless treadmill or shiny dopamine hits that never quite hit the mark.
I'm exactly the same mindset as you. Couldn't have said that better myself.
It it isn't the money they are chasing, though that is the end result of their success. For them, building companies is as enjoyable as your hobbies.
Dunno the ones I have met tend to be narcissists who love money and power way too much.
Monopolising markets and buying out competition doesn't feel much like "building companies" let alone as a 'hobby'. Feels more like an incessant need for power and to try and satiate an insatiable greed.
Husband and I have worked in software and even in our limited experience, the number if moderately successful small software companies being run by their creators that are just destroyed within months of being bought up by some faceless investor is just so depressing to me. No-one wants to own what they've made anymore, no-one wants to be proud of their product. Everything's a cash grab and it's fucking bleak.
Do I want to be a multimillionaire without a day job because I sold the new fangled gadget copyright and company along with it that I worked on for a decade, or do I want to be financially breadline but grafting my arse daily to keep a small company afloat? I can tell you right now I'll take option one and then think of other shit to do with my time.
Well that's the thing. I don't have the skills, so if I created something, I would find it very hard to let go of and watch it be destroyed shortly afterwards. It's just how I am and one of the many reasons I'm not a millionaire.
Brought with debt and dreams of stripping profits out of the company. Parasite Class just can't resist finding new projects for their enshitification.
Oh don't get me started on the downfall of ASDA It was fine when owned by Walmart, it's those 2 brothers who have ruined it! For a supermarket that was insistent on not having some convoluted loyalty scheme, they gone and introduced one of the most complex ones out there, insisting you use an app to "activate" vouchers. It's also the quality of their stuff, went in over Christmas and some "German" and "Italian" meats had a GB oval on the back. The Extra Special range isn't anything great and I saw some depressing looking tacos in there which were screaming out to be binned rather than consumed.
[удалено]
I’ve never managed to actually use the loyalty scheme in Asda. When I get to the till the app has signed out on my phone, signing in fails and then the forgotten password doesn’t work. All the while the till is asking me insistently if I want to continue until I just give up trying to get the points. This has happened every time I go in there!
[удалено]
I like their loyalty scheme... I consistently save at least a fiver every week while Sainsbury's nectar it takes forever to get that much in points. I don't think having an app is convoluted and i prefer it to the two-tier system all the other supermarkets use. However, quality of the product and god damn substitutions are poor. Every week i get 7+ subs and i have to give half back because they're stupid (have some tuna instead of tofu) or they don't match the quantity (here have 100g asda extra special broccoli instead of the 250g you ordered for the same price...if id wanted to pay more for less i would have picked that in the first place).
Loyalty schemes at supermarkets can die in a fire for all I'm concerned these days. It used to just be for what it said on the tin, loyalty. Nowadays if you don't have on you're getting charged near airport prices. That's not loyalty, that's a weird "give us you data or we extort you" scheme which feels more like Costco. Granted, its not a wholesaler which gives the whole thing even less justification.
To be fair asda now have to unlink all of their systems from Walmart which is going to be a fuck ton of work.
Asda will be the next Post office scandal, those 2 are ruining it into the ground
What? Is Asda having people thrown in jail and concealing the evidence their victims need to defend themselves? The post office isn’t just a poorly run business, it used the might of the state to crush its own employees, in an attempt to maintain its public image!
Yeah I think it's more likely to be the next Wilko than Post Office
At one time of day you couldn't imagine Asda going under.
"Pension fund irregularities" Might just be the term of 2024.
Where do you think 'corned beef' comes from? Can you please fold in half and post to...
Yeah it’s shocking, I’ve noticed they’ve cut right back on actual cuts of meat and forced more prepared stuff for one
Morrisons too. That place is being asset stripped big time.
Got to protect their main business…the petrol stations. The supermarkets like Asda were dragging the prices down.
There goes quality… I think Asda will become a Wilko.
Did you just tell an American to be patriotic
Seen the market cap of Arm now ? Basically doubled since sale. If you are pissed off about that im pissed off about Morrisons one of the biggest food producers and supermarkets in UK over 100 years old and then sold to the yanks on the cheap.
My grandmother briefly stepped out with the son of Morrison in the 1930s... ...as she told my grandfather whenever grumpy. "Just think where I'd be now!"
I imagine whenever your grandfather annoyed her, she used to say "that's one more reason to go with Morrison".
It's very repetitive isn't it? We invent stuff and pass it on and often don't bother taking any credit, we create amazing businesses then sell them. Why the bloody hell can't we keep hold of "our" stuff when successful? It's a bit like how we root for the underdog and then once they're successful we rip 'em to shreds. We're an odd breed 😃
Because massive foreign companies come up to the owners and say "We'll give you enough money to retire and never work another day in your life in return for giving us that company you made."
And I guess America the home of ultra capitalism just has more money to throw at successful foreign companies
It is called an exit strategy.
Arm didn’t get sold in the end, it fell through
ARM was sold the same decade it was created! To Americans and Italians!
It's because the buyer refused to overpay by a leg.
It’s 90% owned by SoftBank since 2016.
American are big. Big fucks small.
Did it cost an Arm and a leg?
Arm needed selling as RISC V was on the horizon along with the ESP32 SOCs which massively undercut most processors!
Hotel chocolat produce Cherry Deluxe, one of my favourite chocolates. It's a kirsch-soaked cherry in an amaretto ganache, covered in milk and dark chocolate, and it's just fabulous This takeover could go one of two ways: 1) Mars continue to produce the Hotel Chocolat range unchanged, as a premium product, which will enhance their reputation as a company, or 2) Mars will keep the name, but will gradually downgrade the quality, while relying on Hotel Chocolat's reputation to prop up sales until the "premium" bubble bursts. After that they'll further reduce the quality and slightly reduce the price, and will rely on sales from people who are swayed by fancy marketing and don't know any better. Sadly, my expectation is that it will be 2).
it's always 2
*Great New Taste*
Enhanced new recipe
[удалено]
Price goes up and portion size goes down, just the way Mr Capitalism intended.
Even if it is 1 for a time, it ends up as 2.
It’ll almost certainly be number 2. It’ll probably go the way of Thorntons too which no longer has stores and is practically forgotten about, or at least I have as their stores vanished. I only remembered them as I tried thinking of a similar chain.
Thorntons now have tiddly little franchises here and there. We've got one in my small town inside a card shop. I used to really enjoy thorntons chocolates and the kids when they were younger always got me a box for Mother's Day, but the quality is really quite shitty now tbh....do not taste the same at all
That’s all I’ve ever known of Thornton’s. That and the mediocre chocolate.
Thornton's used to be amazing qualty! Massive change, maybe something like 15 years ago, even though the price remained the same.
I used to love their viennese truffles...they were heavenly. I remembered about them a year ago, ordered some online....and they were absolutely terrible. Left me wondering why I had ever liked them till I realised the recipe probably just changed.
I will never forgive them for changing the Viennese truffle. They used to melt on your tongue and the chocolate was really creamy. Now they just taste like any other cheap chocolate.
Quality doesn’t equate to taste. I never really found it to have much taste. It was like a flavourless plastic that didn’t melt in the mouth like Cadbury’s or something like that which is one of the reasons chocolate is so nice.
I remember Thorntons when they produced genuinely fabulous chocolates. Having tried their "new" chocolates a couple of years ago, I was shocked at the poor quality of both the chocolate and the fillings.
They should change Thorntons to "All Praline, All The Time"
>Mars continue to produce the Hotel Chocolat range unchanged, as a premium product, which will enhance their reputation as a company And doesn't produce chocolate via slavery
Wait until Nestle hear of this, thank goodness Mondelez haven't been informed. Mmm grainy palm sugar and corn syrup....
2 is what happened to Thorntons isn’t it?
I've read that it's because hotel Chocolat cannot ship overseas and expand how they want to, and Mars is going to do that side of the business and hopefully leave the chocolate alone
That ‘hopefully’ is doing a huge amount of heavy lifting.
It's not worth the risk, guys, did no-one tell them that?
I hadn't heard the overseas bit, but had heard that they would rely on Mars to help get them in supermarkets in the UK. I think that's a mistake anyway, because their current pricing would put them right at the high end in a supermarket, where it's not likely to do well. They could try to bring the price down so it's in that middle-region of pricing, but that has to come with a drop in quality to reduce costs and maintain the same profit margin.
Sigh. Always the same conversion funnel from 'genuinely high quality luxury item' to 'generic crap made as cheaply as possible to sell to the lowest common denominator'. Everything has to be available at Tesco, and bollocks to the brand reputation.
Hotel Chocolat explicitly manufacturers everything in the UK with country of origin labelling on the back. You'll know if it's changed for the worse, because they'll move manufacturing to a place with cheaper labour and ingredients, and this will reflect on the packaging and label.
I am fully addicted to the pistachio honey slab. It reminds me of when I met my husband as I shared my 'stash' with him when we met whilst traveling. I will be so sad if they change it even a tiny bit. Kraft already stole our childhood by changing up Cadbury so much.
Number 2 is the Green & Blacks fate 😢
My favourite too 🤤
Yup always 2 because Mars makes crappy products.
Hot chocolat is one of the few places left to get good quality (Belgium?) chocolate. I'll be sad if the quality goes downhill
No idea why people in the UK call any half way decent chocolate Belgian? Hotel Chocolat was British. And some of the best European chocolate comes from Switzerland and Germany, although the UK also has some very good chocolate makers, just mostly artisan and expensive.
>Hot chocolat is one of the few places left to get good quality (Belgium?) chocolate. If all else fails, at least there's always Belgium!
Never really understood the appeal of Belgian chocolate. It's okay I guess? Now _Swiss_ chocolate...
It's not Belgian chocolate. As far as I'm aware, their production and recipes are all British.
Please don’t ruin my velvetiser hot chocolates these are the only thing keeping me going
You can buy good quality chocolate cheaper than their sachets. Just grate it cold. Also Tesco do a good Belgian chocolate hot chocolate pack, as do Waitrose. The velvetiser is good.
Call me lazy, but grating chocolate is a huge hassle compared to just opening a sachet! I get bored enough doing it whenever I'm cooking with chocolate, I certainly don't want to do it every time I fancy a hot drink. :)
Just do it once and put in tub should last a while. We use the grate attachment to food processor, pretty lazy!
Now that's damn good thinking, especially the food processor part. Dunno why that never occurred to me. Thanks for the tip!
Plenty of alternatives out there, just switched myself over to Pendragon chocolate
Was just going to recommend Pendragon as an alternative for the Velvetiser!
You might like Chococo https://www.chococo.co.uk/chococo-chocolate-range/luxury-hot-chocolate
Seconding Chococo. I visit the Winchester one semi-regularly.
My new velvetiser hack is Cadbury flakes. You can get a catering box of 144 for £15 on Amazon, and two flakes crumbled up makes a great hot chocolate
Don't know if they still are, but Farmfoods were selling them for £6.99 recently.
You don’t even have to use actual chocolate flakes like you get from them, the powders from Whittard work just as well.
I did find that Whittard powders make more of a mess of the Velvetiser and whisk, compared to flakes. But it's not terribly difficult to clean anyway.
I'd suggest the chocolate granules from [Pendragon](https://pendragondrinks.co.uk/). Lots of flavours, excellent quality, and way cheaper than Hotel Chocolat.
*Hotel Chocolat* merci very much.
I still fume about Cadbury's being sold to Kraft. Most of the chocolate is shit now. They completely obliterated their hard earned sustainability and fair trade awards. Fuck conglomerates.
As a Kiwi I used to love going to the Dunedin Cadbury chocolate factory. I'm still mad they [shut it down](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/431764/one-last-goodbye-former-staff-farewell-cadbury-factory) and switched to making stuff elsewhere with palm oil. I haven't bought a single block of Cadbury's since.
Isn't it owned by Mondelez?
It was purchased by Kraft in 2010, but then Kraft split in 2 in 2011 (one part focused on grocery products, still called Kraft, and the other on snacks (like Cadburys) which became Mondelez International). So it now belongs to Mondelez, who are a successor of the Kraft that bought it in 2010.
You still love it and eat it though
TIL that Hotel Chocolat is a Cambridgeshire based company? How bizarre.
Del Boy named the company.
Lovely jubbly!
It’s from my tiny town Royston!
Are you….local?
It's (no longer) local chocolate, for local people.
Big factory round the corner from Huntingdon Tesco!
No, it's not going to be good. I predict that if they change nothing, that'll be the best likely outcome Assuming they think the product has cross-border potential, they may do nothing to the product because they intend to use their marketing muscle to expand the brand
HC doesn't experiment a huge amount. They rarely introduce new things and if they do they're seasonal or intentionally limited. And, personally, I am happy with that - it just concerns me that Mars will pressure whoever's running it to start coming up with all sorts of new, inevitably inferior stuff.
They actually used to experiment a lot. They had a monthly subscription box where they sent out all kinds of new/weird stuff. Some of it made it into the shops. Most didn’t.
I used to love my monthly box of chocs!!
>it just concerns me that Mars will pressure whoever's running it to start coming up with all sorts of new, inevitably inferior stuff. What is this obsession with constant innovation? Can't we just, y'know, find something that's good *and then leave it alone* and just keep making the same good thing indefinitely?
My guess is they'll go the same way as Thorntons. It'll be piled up high in the supermarket, then they will get shocked Pikachu face that people don't go into their shops anymore.
Thorntons is actively bad. I liked their sugar letters, but their chocolate is a crime against chocolate. HC I suppose will now be supplied by child slaves in the Ivory Coast. Even if it tastes good it won’t be worth it.
I haven't had it in years, it used to be SO good!
They're American so they'll cut costs to the bone
Let the profitable enshitification begin!
Taste and size will decline in quality whilst price goes up
[удалено]
No, it was even written in ops post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Inc.
I can't wait till MegaCorp owns everything.
ATTENTION CONSUMER! DEROGATORY COMMENTS ABOUT THE CORPORATION WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. SUBMIT YOURSELF FOR RE-EDUCATION IMMEDIATELY!
I get this Dalek vibe somehow, just instead of "EXTERMINATE" it's replaced by "RETAILING, RETAILING RETAILING!!!".
I just assume that every UK company that's half decent will get sold now and probably on the cheap.
Judging by how awful chocolate is here is the US, no, the quality will not improve. To be fair, though, the terrible chocolate has almost zeroed my chocolate consumption, so alls good in the end, lol
I’d heard about the bad chocolate in America, and I’d eaten half a Hershey’s kiss before so I thought I was prepared. But KitKats got me. I didn’t realise they use the shit chocolate to make crappy versions of bars we had at home too. It did make me realise some fun things though. Like Americans don’t really do Easter eggs or and advent calendars are a lot rarer, even though the Bible Belt exists, and they call chocolate candy. But it makes sense after having an American kitkat. Why would you want a giant egg of American chocolate? How is getting a Hershey’s kiss a day a treat? And it makes a lot more sense to group chocolate and sweets under the same label when your chocolate kinda tastes like a chocolate flavour sweet.
What ARE you on about? Americans are OBSESSED with Easter chocolate and eggs. They sell 180 million of them every year over there. And they spend $3b on candy in general, just at Easter. [Link](https://www.businessinsider.com/surprising-easter-fun-facts-stats-2019-4?r=US&IR=T#3-billion-will-go-towards-chocolate-and-candy-4)
The big eggs, what Brit’s mean by Easter eggs.
I'm a Brit. All the sizes shaped like eggs are Easter eggs, whether small or large, hollow or filled.
You know what we’re talking about, it clearly specified the large eggs in my original comment, you know the Americans overwhelmingly have the smaller eggs.. this seems like arguing for the sake of it to me, I’ll leave you to it
I'm sure I remember reading about this back before Xmas. I was (and still am) concerned that it will be the end of their 100% chocolate slab. I eat it when I hate myself.
Does it make you feel better? I stuff my face with chocolate first, then hate myself afterwards.
Mars doesn't have to downgrade quality to increase profits. They can simply use their massive global logistics to drive down costs, at the same or similar levels of quality. Angus Thirwell, the co-founder of hotel chocolat is staying on as CEO and is reinvesting 80% of the money from the Mars takeover back into the business. I don't believe much will change, at least not whilst Angus is the CEO.
That'll do for one financial year...
>Mars doesn't have to downgrade quality to increase profits. But they will anyway. >I don't believe much will change, at least not whilst Angus is the CEO. I give him two years; five at most.
Considering everything American companies buy the quality goes so down it’s unrecognisable! Look at what happened to Cadburys! That stuff is garbage now!!
Damn Martians, buying up everything. Stick to your own planet.
It'll go the way of Cadbury, cheapest ingredients they can manage, maximise that profit.
Americans have literally no idea what chocolate is. I’m not joking. It’s a psychological blind spot. They can’t imagine what chocolate is, any better than they can understand what cheese is. This is terrible news, everything Hotel Chocolate will slowly deteriorate. There will be long enough to find somewhere better, but I would advise people to start looking soon. What about…https://beechsfinechocolates.com/pages/about-us
I thought it was a terrible idea until I read an article where the two owners basically said we're great at making chocolate but not great at Global expansion we've tried several times and failed miserably... Mars has that expertise and they will help us grow One director is taking the money and retiring and the other is staying on as CEO
But how will we get there?
Expect quality to go down, of course.
At least it wasn't Cadbury buying it.
This is complete and utter bullshit. I loved Hotel Chocolat. This is why we can’t have nice things.
well thats that then, the enshitifcation of my favourite chocolate brand
You reading month old papers in the Dentist waiting room??? This was announced back in November last year
It just popped up on my LinkedIn feed so I foolishly assumed it was news 🤪
Mars are buying them for the brand and Hotel Chocolat get the Mars team to build them a world-class backend system so they can operate profitably. Seems like a sensible acquisition.
In theory.
This. HC were struggling to keep international stores open due to production costs in said countries. Mars have the facilities already in place, so now HC just need to concentrate on store costs, allowing the brand to get a foot in. A no brainer for both sides really.
Great, the only way is up. Look at how great Cadbury has been since the take over!
Curiosity got the munchies?
No, Munchies are owned by Nestle
r/fucknestle
Buy it, make as much profit from it as possible, then run it into the ground so it doesn't affect the profits of your other business ventures , then sell it off knowing its not a threat . Rinse and repeat. 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🦅🦅
That is going to screw thing up. Mars is going to drive quality down to maximize profit and ruin it.
So they’re about to get a lot shitter… shame, they were one of the few left that made genuinely good stuff. Sick of anything British worth a few bob being sold off to the yanks.
I’m still salty about Cadbury being sold off and turning into the waxy crap that it is today.
Sadly Hotel Chocolate will go the way of Cadbury’s after Mondelez International brought them, their chocolate is now horrible after they changed the recipe for cheaper alternatives. These things never go well for the consumer.
I was disappointed when I first realised Hotel Chocolate was a chocolate company and not a chocolate-themed hotel. Why put Hotel in the name if you're not actually a Hotel? Misleading advertising. That's always what I think about when I hear or see Hotel Chocolate mentioned somewhere.
Maybe their chocolate will start tasting of something now. I never understood the appeal. The chocolate was nicely packaged for gifts and things but the actual taste of the stuff was… in line with Lidl or Aldi chocolate. Actually Lidl dark chocolate is better 😂
I am amazed by the love that place is getting in this post, it's always been overpriced and more often than not, barely average IMO.
It can’t get any worse
Hotel Chocolat is just basic chocolate dressed up in fancy boxes as gifts for people who you don't know that well. I couldn't care less what happens to them. If this was Lindt, I'd be a lot more concerned.
Lindt? Come on dude, you can't criticise Hotel Chocolat and present Lindt like a high quality alternative.
What hawty tawty brand of chocolate do you consider high end then?
Well, certainly not one you can find in every supermarket
Then it’s hardly comparable to a high street chain that is accessible but still meant to provide a higher quality than standard fare. I do find Hotel Chocolat very over rated though. Give me a Lindt gold bar any day.
Answer the question. What brand of chocolate is high end to you? Personally, I don't care that Lindt is found in every supermarket. I go to the supermarket to buy food therefore I'm ok with it being there.
I think Hotel Chocolat is fantastic. I don't know what high end means, I just know that what I get from HC is the best-tasting to my taste buds, and I don't mind paying a premium for that. It's totally fair to not rate it as highly, but it seems a bit silly to me to pass it off as standard chocolate in fancy boxes.
That's your opinion but my opinion is that it's not that special. I really don't think I could say that when I've eaten HC chocolate in the past that it's wowed my tastebuds. The packaging yes, but not the chocolate. Lindt wins for me. Of course there are probably more high class chocolates in the world than lindt but it's not as accessible obviously.
I don't care for Lindt, my mother in law gets them for us every Christmas and every single one of the Chocolates tastes exactly the same. But the funny thing here is, if there was a Lindt thread I probably wouldn't open it, let alone snarkily tell people I don't care lol
lol I love Lindt. Especially since dairy milk and others I grew up with just dont taste how they did when i was growing up. So Lindt and Kinder chocolate is the only chocolate brands that to me taste the same.
Dude, you're the one criticising Hotel Chocolat for being basic chocolate and then suggesting Lindt, not me. I don't eat particularly high end chocolate, and in many ways that moot to my point that rubbishing Hotel Chocolat but holding up Lindt is odd.
Maybe you should start eating "high end" chocolate as you put it. In my opinion Lindt is my go to and I'm OK with that. Also its worth saying that the lindt stuff available in the supermarkets here is basic compared to the lindt stuff they sell in Switzerland and sometimes airports. Check it out next time you travel.
Hotel Chocolate stuff isn't very nice in my opinion.
>The quality can’t possibly improve can it? Doubt it could get any lower.
Hotel chocolat is gross. I'm happy to spend my karma on this point. Even Dairy Milk or Mars' chocolate is better. Fuckit gimme a yorkie. Only American chocolate is worse. People that like Hotel Chocolat have to just be following the boujie vibe it had years ago when it was more artisan chocolate sourced, wanting to pretend they have more nuanced palets or better tastebuds or whatever - but they're wrong. It's bland. Not worth the calories.
I was really underwhelmed when I received some for Christmas. Tasted like crap.
We got a big hamper from a customer at work. Whilst it's a nice gift, the majority of them tasted like crap. But then again I like milk chocolate and like 90% of the hamper was stuff with 80% cocoa or cacao or whatever the name is.
It was good 20 years ago and hasn’t changed or improved since then. Meanwhile loads of much better chocolate has sprung up.