It is hard to believe the sweet-toothed British are missing a trick when it comes to chocolate. That, however, is the conclusion of Shafiq Shafi, who is stepping up his campaign to introduce the thick hot chocolate of Spain, France and Italy to the UK. Shafi had his Eureka moment in 1995 in Malaga. As a non-coffee drinker in a country where, he claims, a good cup of tea is impossible to find, he ordered a chocolate à la tasse in a café. It turned out to be a chocolate drink with a consistency more like a thin custard than the runny chocolate with which he was more familiar. "It was absolutely fantastic," he says. "It was at that point that I thought, why haven't we got anything like this at home." It took more than 10 years, however, before he was in a position to launch the product he decided to call simply Spanish Chocolate. Adapted for British tastebuds — its 20% cocoa content is 5% more chocolaty than the Spanish version and 25% less sugary — it is, he says, "like melted chocolate". The key to its thickness is the way in which the chocolate is blended, as well as the addition of potato starch. A plastic jar of Spanish Chocolate with an rsp of £2.95 has been on sale for the past two years but since the end of last year Shafi has been concentrating his efforts on a 350g tin with an rsp of £4.99. He has also changed the name of the company through which he markets the product. Previously under Kargo International, his father's importing business, Spanish Chocolate is now produced in Madrid and packaged in Leicester specially for Shafi's The Spanish Chocolate Company. He has invested £250,000 in the product over the past two years. "We're trying to bring it into the mainstream," he says. "At the moment it's being placed next to Twinings and other top brands. We want it to remain as a premium hot chocolate but also as an everyday alternative to other hot chocolate brands. We're definitely not competing with Cadbury, but we probably want a lot of its customers and at the moment people don't know there's an alternative." Shafi has plans to launch Spanish Chocolate sachets and other flavours but, although it is in Tesco stores across the UK and in several delis, his immediate aim is to persuade Sainsbury's and Waitrose to stock the product.

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