A FAMILY firm which scooped £50,000 with a little bit of help from Take That has invested the money in shaking up their business and tracking down suppliers that are closer to home.

ChocCards won the cash in the regional Barclays Take One Small Step contest last summer after pulling in the most text and online votes, helped by managing director Laura Kemp’s bright idea to create personalised chocolate wrappers for each of the Take That boys during their concerts at the Stadium of Light last May.

The Sunderland business, which is run by Laura and her mother Gaye Shakeshaft, designs the bespoke Belgian chocolate wrappers for gifts and special occasions.

The pair spent their winnings to improve their website, allowing customers to design and brand their own chocolate cards and wrappers, and on tracking down new suppliers.

Laura said: “Whilst building the business over the last few years, we have used chocolate made in Scotland bought via a distributor in the Midlands, as this was initially more cost effective for us. However, it was always our goal to source a local supplier who could meet our needs, offering more flexibility and a better end product for our clients.

“We have recently contracted Choc-affair, a fantastic artisan chocolate maker with green ideals based in North Yorkshire. They will now supply all our fair-trade chocolate made to fine Belgian recipes. This is part of a company-wide investment plan to drive the business forward by creating a network of like-minded suppliers, which was assisted a great deal by us winning the One Small Step competition.

“We know what it’s like to be an SME in the North East, so when we became winners and had the prize money to spend, supporting other local businesses whilst developing our own was very important. It’s fantastic to work alongside other firms, operating on similar scales to our own, in order to drive ChocCards forward.”