Sophie Jewitt’s story is about taking a passion and turning it into a career – something that many of us dream of but few achieve.

Sophie has loved chocolate for as long as she can remember, perfecting her own signature chocolate fudge recipe at just 8-years-old. Today, she makes a living as a chocolate entrepreneur; founder of the popular York Cocoa House Chocolate Emporium in Yorkshire.

As well as making and selling chocolate products from the in-house kitchens, shop and café, a core component of the business is running chocolate making workshops and masterclasses.

Events have played a crucial role in Sophie’s success, and enabled her to turn her love of chocolate into a way of life. It could have played out differently; Sophie set out to study politics, philosophy and economics, but became drawn into events through her involvement with the University of York’s Students’ Union.

“When I got to uni, I became heavily involved with student fundraising and started organising activities and events,” she says. “I enjoyed it so much, I ended up taking a year off of my degree to do it.”

It was during her experience here that Sophie, a farmer’s daughter from the Isle of Wight, first saw an opportunity for her beloved chocolate.

“One of the biggest challenges was managing the event volunteers, but I understood that if you gave people a little sweet treat when they were working for you, they would generally do what you needed them to do!

“I would spend a couple of days before our big events making biscuits or chocolates. I would give everybody their own little packet with their name on just to say thank you. I found that by doing that; taking time out to reflect and to appreciate people, the event would become a pleasure and we could do some amazing things with a very limited budget.”

From university, Sophie went on to become a manager at an outside catering company, having decided to make a career in events and completed a master’s degree in event management.

“I was running events at places like York Minster, at different stately homes and a lot of York’s museums. Through that I began to learn more about the chocolate industry across the city and what impact it had had on York.”

York was once the UK’s Chocolate capital; home to the Rowntree and Terry families whose names are now synonymous with the brown stuff. It’s also where Mr. Cadbury and Mr. Fry trained in chocolate making.

Sophie’s fascination with chocolate grew and she soon spotted a chocolate bar-shaped gap in the market: “I was working for a university in PR and events and I was trying to source handmade chocolates to give as corporate gifts – I felt by giving people chocolate it would make them remember the organisation and feel special. However, I was having real problems finding what I was looking for.

“In the end, I thought ‘this is silly, I think I could do this’ so I decided I would start a little company on the side.

“That was around my 29^th birthday and I had the ambition of having the company up and running in time for a chocolate exhibition in Paris around the same time the following year.

“I started getting serious about chocolate and that Christmas I made chocolates for everybody as presents. I began dreaming what it would be like to have a chocolate shop.

“I made it to Paris and officially launched the company on my 30^th birthday. I had a big party with all my friends from the events industry, gave everyone my chocolates and asked what they thought.”

That company was called Pretty Little Things and quickly became more than a part-time hobby. Says Sophie: “As well as making chocolates as corporate gifts and wedding favours, I was also offering chocolate parties in people’s homes. I set up a website and soon had all my weekends booked out with hen parties and birthdays.

“It got a little out of control and, after six months, I thought ‘I can do something with this’ and I gave my notice in. Everybody thought I was crazy – I think I did too – but part of me felt it was a good opportunity.”

It was certainly sublime timing, because Sophie’s departure coincided with a very apt initiative being run by the city library.

“They were running a programme called Big City Reads, launching a number of events all around a popular book and that summer the book they were doing was ‘Chocolat’! I got involved and went straight into organising a summer of chocolate events.”

A year later, the business was doing so well that Sophie decided to expand by getting her own premises, enabling her to move production out of her kitchen and provide an in-house venue for parties, workshops and events.

“I’d been looking at venues for quite a while and then 3 Blake Street came up. It was clear it was just perfect. Historically, it had been one of the first electrical hardware stores in the country and it had stayed within the same family for 100 years, but immediately prior to us it had been an Italian café and deli. I was scared of going to look at it because it was quite a bit out of our price range and I knew I’d want it was soon as I saw it!

“We ended up shortlisting two different locations. One was much lower in costs and overheads but it was going to take much longer for us to get it going, but this one, because it had been a café before, we knew we could get it going quickly. It was September and we were very keen to get ahead and open for Christmas.

“All of a suddenly it became a realisable opportunity. I remember going to sleep the night before I needed to make the decision. I thought ‘if I’m going to jump off a cliff and go do this, I might as well jump off a really big one!’”

York Cocoa House was launched in 2011 and Sophie began climbing a steep learning curve.

“Scaling up from my home business to the shop and café was a massive leap. I foolishly thought I could make all the chocolates myself and I’d have lots of time to do all this and I soon realised it wasn’t going to be like that – I think on the second day.”

Sophie also had to balance using her kitchen for the production of chocolates for the shop with the desire to use the facilities for teaching.

“We wanted to be a big chocolate school offering lots of different things but we had to work with the resources we had. By using events we manage to offer a wide range of things, but not all the time, just for one hour of the day.”

In addition, using Eventbrite as a registration and payment system has enabled Sophie to offer classes to a wider customer base. She explains: “When I first began running and teaching classes, what became very clear were some of the challenges of managing the event infrastructure.

“I ended up doing a lot of hen parties, birthdays and corporate things because you could have one customer who would organise everybody else and sort out that payment.

“There was always a massive opportunity to do something for individuals, couples and family groups but it was very challenging as a single, self employed person to be able to create the right infrastructure because it meant processing and looking after payments for all those separate people.”

“When I launched York Cocoa House, I started working with Eventbrite to develop different options for individuals. We have used it extensively and it’s been fantastic for growth. We even have people booking events months in advance.”

She adds: “Developing a business with a shop, a school and a café requires three different structures and operational procedures but Eventbrite has enabled us to run the events professionally from the very beginning.”

According to Sophie, this has led to further opportunities, like large off-site corporate events and the chance to collaborate with other chocolatiers.

“It’s been great to meet other people who are as similarly passionate about chocolate, to see how we can work together. We all want to grow the market and the industry and to expand our role into educating the consumer about what goes into chocolate.”

Although Sophie has come so far – even winning mentorship from Dragon’s Den star Deborah Meaden in a business accelerator competition – she still has a lot of ambition for her business.

“Our plan is to move further back in the supply chain by manufacturing chocolate straight from the bean,” she reveals. “We want to make more of our own product from the beginning to the end so we can show the consumer every step of the process.

“We’re developing more educational activities – we really want people to understand where chocolate comes from and how it’s made. To understand, for example, that chocolates with a higher sugar content have a longer shelf life.

“York is a city with a fascinating chocolate heritage and we want to use events to help us really communicate that heritage.”

Visit the York Cocoa House Eventbrite page to check out all of its upcoming events.