Wirral small business investment specialist Bathgate Business Finance is backing a real-life Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory with a £114,000 sweetener. Tony McDonough reports

Chocolate factory owner Richard Holt has secured a £264,000 cash injection as he looks to expand his business to meet rising demand.

Wirral-based small business investment specialist Bathgate Business Finance has joined forces with the Development Bank of Wales and another unnamed funder to back Anglesey-based chocolatier Mr Holt’s.

Richard, who was celebrity chef Marcus Wareing’s former head pastry chef and star of S4C’s pastry programme Yr Academi Felys (The Sweet Academy), has been running the factory and a café at a former mill at Melin Llynon, near Llanddeusant.

He has been crafting a popular Siocled – ‘chocolate ‘in Welsh – range of Welsh treats, along with a range of Anglesey-branded donuts – nicknamed monuts.

Now he is relocating production to a newly refitted factory at nearby Llangefni. New and improved machinery will allow Mr Holt’s to meet rising demand. It offers more space than the original site and will allow Richard to increase capacity.

Bathgate, which is based in West Kirby, is providing Mr Holt’s with £84,000 from its own funding book, The Bathgate Capital Fund as well as a further £30,000 brokered by Bathgate from a specialist funder.

Co-investor the Development Bank of Wales is injecting a further £150,000. This is the second time the business has received support from the development bank, following an initial loan of £30,000 in 2019.

Richard said: “We’ve seen so much success in the last few years, and we wanted to make sure we could answer that increased demand by building up our capacity and taking on newer, bigger production premises.

“The new factory in Llangefni is exactly what we needed, while also allowing us to keep making chocolate locally and retaining important jobs on Anglesey.”

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The Bathgate Capital Fund hit a landmark £5m in capital lending in March 2025, the highest in the company’s 34-year history.

Tracey Hamilton, a business development manager at Bathgate, added: “Richard, his family and his team of chocolatiers have created an excellent product that is already a Welsh gifting staple and in huge demand further afield too.

“A great deal of creativity and imagination has gone into developing the confectionery brand, and the factory site into a fantastic and engaging attraction too, with a chocolate factory-themed escape room and activities to attract visitors to the area too.”