Noosa Chocolate Factory opens third Brisbane store in CBD

A Noosa chocolate business specialising in fresh from the factory morsels has defied a cocoa shortage and opened a third store in the heart of Brisbane.

Noosa Chocolate Factory Brisbane 3rd Store Opening

Amid a global cocoa shortage and an economic crisis, a Noosa chocolate business has expanded with another store opening in the state’s capital.

The Noosa Chocolate Factory opened its third Brisbane store last week to a crowd of customers.

The new shop, in the Brisbane Arcade, caters for retail shoppers with a dizzying array of freshly made blocks of chocolate and other treats being sold within days of leaving the Noosa factory.

Noosa Chocolate Factory general manager Nick Southon said their chocolates were “made fresh every week” and people knew they were guaranteed a fresh, great tasting locally made product.

“In the past 24 months, the company has essentially doubled in size across production and every other metric,” he said.

“We’ve been in the original cafe in Adelaide St, Brisbane for about four years now, and we just didn’t have enough floor space in there for the amount of customers coming through. We do about 500 coffees there a day.”

As the two existing stores in the Brisbane CBD primarily capture the corporate market of people grabbing a treat or coffee on their way to work, the goal of this new shop is to “attract retail shoppers and those out for a nice day in the city”.

The factory has also developed an online click and collect shop that launched last weekend.

Noosa Chocolate Factory general manager Nick Southon at the Brisbane store opening.

The business was established in 2009 and specialises in panned, slab and moulded products, and conducts research into the creation of new products and chocolate trends.

This year there has been serious supply chain disruption within the chocolate industry and prices for raw cacao skyrocketed across the world.

Mr Southon attributed The Noosa Chocolate Factory’s continued success to its local focus and small sustainable business model alongside some forward thinking.

“We’re very fortunate as I’ve bought a lot of our chocolate supply in advance for this twelve months, and it’s increased in price by a multiple of ten by mid year,” he said.

According to Mr Southon, cocoa as the raw material used to be about $3090 a tonne and the business buys through the European market.

The general manager said by May, cocoa was costing more than $22,000 a tonne but it had decreased since.

“Everybody’s affected by it,” Mr Southon said.

“Ninety per cent of the world’s cocoa comes from Africa, and almost 100% of the dark cocoa, the dark chocolate, comes from the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

“These are very small growing regions, and literally every chocolate producer sources from there.”

With the cacao prices slowly returning to normal, Mr Southon’s focus for the first half of 2025 will be sustainability.

“We have a solar-powered factory and we’re looking to explore batteries for night operations,” he said.

“We’re also looking for new packaging suppliers to try and lower our waste even further, as everything we already use is recycled.”

Originally published as Noosa Chocolate Factory opens third Brisbane store in CBD