It has been an exciting year for The Canny Chocolate Company, with our chocolate experiences travelling a little further than usual — from our home in South Shields to guests onboard cruise ships.

Earlier this year, we took our first steps into delivering chocolate experiences at sea with a programme onboard a river cruise, before Adam headed aboard Saga’s Spirit of Discovery in June to deliver a series of workshops, tastings and chocolate-focused sessions for guests. For a business built around creating memorable, hands-on chocolate experiences, taking what we do onboard has felt like a very natural next chapter. Our workshops in South Shields have always been about much more than simply making chocolate. We want guests to get involved, learn something new, ask questions, taste fantastic chocolate and, most importantly, have a brilliant time while doing it.

Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to adapt that approach for guests onboard a river cruise. It was our first chance to see how a Canny Chocolate experience could work away from our own chocolate studio — with different facilities, different guest numbers and, of course, a constantly changing view outside. The experience gave us the opportunity to develop workshops specifically for the cruise environment and proved that hands-on chocolate making could work just as well at sea as it does back home in South Shields. The next big step came in June, when Adam joined Saga’s Spirit of Discovery as a guest chocolatier.

During his time onboard, Adam delivered a varied programme of chocolate experiences for Saga guests, including interactive chocolate workshops, guided tastings and sessions exploring the fascinating world behind one of our favourite ingredients. The hands-on workshops saw groups of guests getting stuck into chocolate making themselves, learning techniques, creating their own chocolates and discovering a little more about how professional chocolatiers work.

Alongside the practical sessions, Adam also delivered guided chocolate tastings and presentations, giving larger groups the opportunity to explore different chocolates, flavours and cocoa in a relaxed and entertaining setting. There are, unsurprisingly, a few extra considerations when your chocolate studio happens to be moving. Every onboard programme has to be carefully planned around the facilities available, the number of guests attending and the equipment and ingredients required for each session.

Chocolate itself can also be wonderfully temperamental, so temperature and environment have to be considered too. But that challenge is part of what Adam has particularly enjoyed about developing the onboard programme. The aim has never been to simply recreate one of our South Shields workshops on a ship. Instead, each experience is designed specifically for the environment and the guests onboard.

Following this year’s programmes, the cruise side of The Canny Chocolate Company is continuing to grow. Adam has already been invited back onboard Saga to deliver further chocolate experiences, and we’re also currently in conversations with a number of other cruise lines and partners about bringing our workshops, tastings and demonstrations to even more guests in the future.

We’re continuing to develop new concepts specifically for life at sea, from hands-on chocolate making and guided tastings to destination-inspired experiences, seasonal workshops and larger presentation-style sessions. For us, it’s incredibly exciting to see something that began in our chocolate studio in South Shields now travelling much further afield.

And with more opportunities now beginning to open up, we’re very excited to see where we head next.