Success tastes sweet with Whitakers

Whitakers confectioners was founded 130 years ago in Skipton in Yorkshire.

Its managing director, William Whitaker, tells Joshua Hammond the story of his business and what it’s like to work with both his father and his son.

Whether you’ve given up chocolate for Lent, or it’s an integral part of your daily stress-busting diet, it’s a fair bet the taste of Whitakers chocolate has passed your lips in the not-too-distant past.

The family business, which has grown from humble beginnings almost 130 years ago, now makes more than two million pieces of chocolate a day.

With more than 110 permanent members of staff, Whitakers has developed a niche for itself supplying the hotel and hospitality trades with individually wrapped chocolates.

In fact, investing in that side of the business has helped Whitakers firmly establish itself as one of the market leaders in confectionery, with its work so highly regarded that it manufactures chocolate for other suppliers. In 2017, 90 per cent of chocolate processed at Whitakers’ Skipton base is developed for other companies and customers’ own brands.

But the firm’s impressive figures today belie its modest origins as a grocer and drapers shop in Cross Hills in the Craven district of North Yorkshire.

The firm’s managing director, William Whitaker, explains the origins of the Skipton-based business, dating back to 1889: “My great grandfather was one of thirteen children of a local farmer in the nearby village of Cross Hills and he decided that he didn’t want to be a farmer’s son, he wanted to open a grocers and drapers shop, which is what he did.

“He learnt his trade from his brother who was also a grocer and draper in another nearby village, which is far removed from making chocolate.

“About 14 years later, his daughter (my grandfather’s sister), Ida, who was a very talented cake maker, persuaded her father to turn the grocery into a bakery.”

Having done her bakery apprenticeship in Morecambe on the Lancashire coast in the early 1900s Ida became responsible for producing all of the cakes and bread sold at the store.

It was only a few years later, when the wife of the local vicar of Kildwick, the parish which includes Cross Hills, taught Mr Whitaker’s great aunt how to make chocolate.

Whitakers only moved to Skipton after William’s grandfather came across a vacant shop on the high street, a retail space that the firm still owns and continued to run until just two years ago.

William explains: “In 1926 the story goes that my grandfather rode his bicycle from Otley to Skipton and saw a shop to let in the high street which we duly took over, closed the Otley and Keighley shops, and moved into the town.

“We opened a separate bakery there too, so we had three sites in Skipton, the family home, the bakery and the shop.

“Another ten years later, they sold the house and the bakery and moved to our present site and put the bakery in the garden.”

The firm only became focussed on making chocolate in the 1950s when John Whitaker joined the business and noticed a trend for after dinner mints spurred on by the hotel trade.

Three generations of the founding family now hold roles at Whitakers.

John, now 81, still works in the company with his son William and grandson, Robert, 26.

William says: “I’m the managing director and encompassed in that on a day-to-day basis is the planning of what we’re actually producing.

“My father turns up to the business most days and he likes to see the way in which the business is moving.

“My eldest son, Robert is involved in all of the areas that neither his father nor his grandfather understand in terms of the artwork, photography, social media and website building.”

William understands that in any other business, a similar relationship could cause a problem, but the Whitakers operation is “fine tuned”.

“I think it’s difficult for the staff when there’s three generations of one family involved in a business, but we’re all very separate in what we do and it’s quite well oiled and fine tuned.

“The business is of a size now where it’s not just about the family members, we rely heavily on key personnel in all areas and all aspects of the business that we need today.”

Joining the business in 1986, having spent some time running his own distribution company, William has seen considerable changes at the business.

“We now make chocolates for thousands of hotels, so if you want your own name on the product we can print those up for you. Over the years, to stay in business you need more and more investment in areas where nobody else has decided to invest like we have.

“Consequently, we now only make five products and we make an awful lot of them, and if you were a producer who wanted these products, why try and make them yourselves when you can come to us for them.”

He adds: “We manufacture for half a dozen well-known manufacturers for that exact reason, their space and investment is needed elsewhere.

“We invested in every aspect, our specialism is that we’ve invested in wrapping individual chocolates.

“It’s a small business that has effectively invested way beyond its size in a niche area of chocolates.”

With over a century’s worth of history from the same family and generations working within the firm, how does it feel seeing the Whitaker name on millions of chocolates?

Mr Whitaker explains: “Do you know? We have the same issues most businesses have, especially manufacturers.

“Sometimes it’s a burden, but we’re clearly very proud of what we do and the heritage within the business.

“But we don’t spend too much time thinking about what we’ve done. We’re looking at opportunities going forward to nurture the business and how to understand the future and how to add to the investment we’ve already got here and maybe creating something a little bit different where there’s demand.

“That’s our job and that’s what we focus on.”

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