Could this be the most successful business from Dragons’ Den?

They are the Birmingham chocolate entrepreneurs hoping to revolutionise the nation’s favourite sweet treat with their ‘fresh chocolate’ concept - in which the goodies kept in the fridge.

Using sustainable ingredients - and no palm oil - Steve Russell and Giles Atwell have an ambition ‘to do to chocolate what Innocent did to smoothies’.

And after receiving offers from ALL FIVE Dragons on Dragons’ Den they could be well on their way!

Their business is called Russell and Atwell. But you’ll have to wait a while before you get the chance to try their chocolate. Because after appearing on the show last week (March 10) the pair have run out of chocolate - for now!

Why did the chocolatiers impress the Dragons so much?

After thirty years working on world-famous chocolate brands, Steve and Giles certainly had the right experience the Dragons were hoping for.

Giles also has a 100 year family history in chocolate too, with some of his relatives working on the first ever choc ice!

At the end of their pitch on the BBC One show, the pair offered the Dragons 9% of the business for £90,000 in investment, telling them, “Imagine if we can do for chocolate what Innocent did for smoothies”.

New Dragon and Happy Sexy Millionaire author, Steve Bartlett, made the first offer of £90,000 for 30% of the business, which triggered an offer from each of the Dragons.

And eventually, Steve and Giles set a deal with Steven and Peter Jones, offering them, each, 10% of the business for the full £90,000 investment.

What did the Dragons and Steve and Giles say?

At the end of the programme, which was filmed in June 2021, Giles said: “We came into the Den open-minded as to who we wanted, but the five offers blew us away, and gave us quite a dilemma. In the end, we chose the ‘dream team of on and off-line - Steven and Peter – and we haven’t looked back since!”

Peter said : “I’m a bit of a chocoholic and I’ve seen a lot of chocolate businesses come through the Den, but nothing tasted like R&A – it seems so obvious that ‘fresh tastes best’, but to experience their chocolates fresh from the fridge was in a different league – I had to invest.”

Steven added: “Chocolate is my ultimate guilty pleasure and salted caramel is my all-time favourite flavour so the R&A Fresh Salted Caramel chocolates really sealed the deal for me. The product is already incredible and has a strong USP, so I knew with a little guidance and marketing we could really make it explode.”

Visit the Russell and Atwell website, here.

A message from the editor:

Thank you for reading. BirminghamWorld is Birmingham’s latest news website, championing everything that is great about our city - reporting on news, lifestyle and sport. We want to start a community among our readers, so please follow us on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram, and keep the conversation going.