WHY does it all have to be so macho? It seems that no corporate bonding session is complete without camouflage trousers and a team-built bridge fashioned out of paper clips and body parts. Which, if you enjoy mud, blood and eye-popping fatigue, is just great. But if khaki is not your colour, and you prefer purgatory to paintballing, then Hannah Saxton may have what you need.
Saxton runs My Chocolate, a London-based company that offers chocolate-making workshops to corporate clients. Tailored to suit each firm’s requirements, the sessions usually begin with a history of chocolate — including samples — before punters don their plastic aprons and get down to the sticky business of producing pralines, truffles and fudge. Champagne is an optional extra. See? Team-building doesn’t have to hurt.
Saxton was a fine-art student before she opted for the dolce vita. A keen cook and a lifelong cheerleader for chocolate, she bought every book she could find on making the stuff. She then did an online course and found work experience in The Netherlands before sinking her savings into founding the firm. At first her target audience was children and hen parties but a spot of cold-calling brought her first corporate customers, some of whom, she admits, are sceptical, “especially the men ”. But suspicion usually melts away as the clients get stuck in.
“I talk about chocolate as though it were wine,” says Saxton, which she finds makes the men feel more comfortable. “I tell them where the cocoa beans come from, how they’ve been roasted and how there are hundreds of different types of dark chocolate alone.”
Yes, but can chocolate help to build better teams? Jill Sacchi, head of human resources for the finance company Hickman Ltd, arranged a night with My Chocolate for 50 staff: “From the CEO to the cleaners, we had such a good time. It’s a feminine thing but all the guys enjoyed it. It’s creative and everyone wanted to work together. It was brilliant. And you get to eat it all.”
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DANIEL ALLEN