About us

Miette is an independent business founded in May 2006 by Katherine and Ed Pomfret. The production of all chocolates and cakes, as well as the day-to-day management of the shop is undertaken by Katherine personally.

Our mission statement is nothing to do with our bank balance or brand recognition. It is two words: ethics and authenticity. From our buying decisions to our production methods to the way we work with customers on private commissions, these are our watchwords. In a world where companies ring us and ask if we want our logo printed on their mass-produced ‘artisan chocolate’ or where we see ‘olde worlde chocolate shops’ selling cheap chocolates made from cheaper ingredients and enjoying twice the margin we do, that is a challenge.

We have no aspirations to take over the world. We do not advertise (except sometimes in the village newsletter!), we do not run PR campaigns (though we have been featured in the national press). We do not do wedding shows or trade shows. What we want to do, from our small shop in the tiny Cotswold town of Stow-on-the-Wold, is create chocolate that is memorable, and that offers an experience — a challenge to the palette, a talking point.

Our customers are, by and large, not tourists (though they’re very welcome!). They are locals who hear about us via word of mouth and travel from increasing distances (many from Oxford and from Cheltenham) to stock up on their favourites from our unique range, to watch us at work in our demonstration kitchen, or try our monthly specials.

At the start we made no claims for our chocolate, but now I really do believe they are some of the best chocolates on sale in this country. This isn’t because we are the best chocolatiers. It’s because:

  • we are owned and managed by chocolatiers, not businessmen (there’s precious few you can say that about these days… and yes it makes every difference in the world)
  • when we say (as everybody seems to these days) we use the best ingredients we mean we pay for the best (our favourite oxymoron is ‘finest Belgian chocolate’…used to describe couverture that’s a third of the price of our Venezuelan!)
  • we use fresh ingredients
  • we don’t add glucose or any of the other weird things our suppliers keep telling us will improve our profit margin
  • we use a sense of wonder and adventure when we put our flavours together
  • we produce everything but everything by hand, in the tiniest batches (our average batch size is still only 120 chocolates)

AND

  • the average age of a chocolate sold in our shop is a few days(ask others, and then see if you believe them…we have no supply chain, no warehouses, no packing facilities. Katherine and Jessica make the chocolates then walk the five metres to our cabinet and they’re on sale….minutes old. And that makes a huge difference).

Reading all this, you might get a sense of our ‘attitude’. It’s true. We hate fakers, we loathe mass production (when that means a compromise on quality and the deskilling of workers), we’re suspicious of gimmicky flavouring (though we love experimentation). We won’t use cheap pre-prepared ingredients, and we roll our eyes at the brands where the packaging costs more than the ingredients of your chocolates.

Our margin is much, much less than those ‘chocolate shops’ who buy in and pack up, and we work much longer hours, because making chocolate by hand is labour intensive. But when we do go to bed at night — or in the early hours of the morning — we know we have done our best. We know people will come back. We know chocolate doesn’t change the world, but if you cannot do your life’s work well, with integrity, then what is the point? Now buy our chocolate.