Whitby Hot Chocolate Festival Organiser Urges Businesses to Sign Up

Organisers of the first Whitby Hot Chocolate Festival are issuing a final appeal to local independent businesses to register their involvement ahead of the event next month.

The festival, which spans from the 14th to the 28th of November 2025, aims to offer fortnight of chocolate-themed events while also helping life-saving project in the town.

The event is designed not only to celebrate chocolate but also to raise vital funds for the Whitby Defibrillator Project. Every business that gets involved with the festival contributes a £40 donation to the charity.

Festival organiser Pam Boland detailed the importance of continued fundraising:

"We're fundraising for the Whitby defibrillator project that managed to install the 40 defibrillators around Whitby and the town.

We have a huge commitment to maintaining those defibrillators. They've got a 4 year life on each battery. If one gets used in an emergency, then we replace that battery. So, all of that comes at a cost.

The battery and the pad come as a kit. So, if the pad is placed on the chest and used, then that entire battery and pad system has to be be replaced at a cost of £165.

It's very rare for them to be used, but as a piece of equipment to save a life, it's priceless. Every business that gets involved with Whitby Chocolate Festival contributes a £40 donation to the charity".

Pam acknowledged the challenges in securing commitments, noting that the past year has left many establishments stretched thin.

"It has been an extremely busy year for Whitby and I'm going in there and proposing brand new ideas and they're just like not now, not now because they're just like spinning plates like crazy and the businesses have been fabulous. It's been a really good year for everyone.

But for little me trying to get people to to take this on, I'm hoping now that as we get close, the people that have been genuinely interested but not quite taken that step to make the donation and get on the map. This will hopefully encourage the people that were very enthusiastic just to make that leap of faith and get signed up onto the website," 

Businesses that register become part of a tempting shopping trail through Whitby's festive streets, listed on a Festival Map and Business Directory, and are invited to feature their chocolate-themed offerings. Establishments such as The Pot & Pineapple, Macy Brown's, and YHA Whitby Café Bar are already listed as having generously supported the underlying cause.

Charitable Focus and Competitions

The festival was always going to feature a competition to find Whitby's best Hot Chocolate, but that competitive element has now been expanded to feature four competitive categories designed to showcase local ingenuity:

• Best hot chocolate
• Best chocolate dessert
• Best chocolate cocktail
• Best chocolate porter or stout

Pam says that the event is actively engaging small, independent enterprises that might not usually participate in such an occasion.

"The businesses I've been going around to see, small businesses that make maybe a brownie or hot chocolate or a certain ingredient in a cake, but they're not normally invited to take part in what has become the chocolate festival.

So, there's four competitions now. Best hot chocolate, best chocolate dessert, best chocolate cocktail, and best chocolate porter or stout.

We decided to have teams of judges going round to visit the different premises and making a decision on each of the four. Then we'll publish those winners during the chocolate festival,"

A Broad Programme

The two-week event is scheduled to coincide with the opening of Christmas markets, creating "all sorts of Christmassy festivity chocolatey things to be looking at in the shops as well".

The festival will feature an "uplifting chocolate & cacao wellness event". The programme includes talks on the nutritional side of chocolate, moving beyond the "sweet and sugary side". A registered nutritional therapist will uncover the health benefits of cacao, and the event will also feature an immersive Cacao Ceremony and Sound Bathing & Chocolate Sampling sessions.

Ms Boland also highlighted a deeply personal contribution to the charity focus:

"It takes place from the 14th to the 28th of November to start with the Christmas markets.

And now this year when people come around the Christmas markets and wander into the town, there's all sorts of Christmassy, festivity chocolatey things to be looking at in the shops as well.

We're having a more therapies wellness based event. We've invited people are involved in the the more wellness packages of what chocolate can do, not just the sweet and sugary side of chocolate, but the more immersive side. So that will include talks on chocolate from a institutionalist. So looking at chocolate as a health food.

My brother who survived a heart attack only about five weeks ago had a defibrillator used on him and he would like to come and talk to people about what it's like to survive. fibrillation. He is keen to talk to people about coming back after defibrillation, which should be fascinating for everybody, I'm sure".

The festival will also host free CPR and defibrillator training sessions following films screened at Whitby Pavilion Cinema, including Wonka (2023) and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971).

Pam says she hopes the festival will grow and has thanked the local firms and the council who have already got behind the idea.

"What was the game changer for the festival was getting a handsome grant from North Yorkshire Council. So that really has given us moving forward a brand new festival.

We've done everything in our power to promote this and get it get it open as a brand new festival and I think there is a bit of fizz around it.

I have to hope that people will come and support the whole festival. A lot of it is family based".

There is more information about the festival at https://www.whitbychocfest.org.uk/

Local firms wanting to sign up can register at :https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeMSy2CdTCizifgDEwIyn5XsxP3x3UAy3dbHSEUIeiR4T_nTA/viewform

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