From dropping out of university to starting his own chocolate business, this is story of Jack Ralph who is breaking the mould.
Jack Ralph is the founder and head chocolatier for ArtChocolat and produces an abundance of unique chocolate creations for his home-based business.
Ralph constantly uploads videos of his experiments and innovative designs to his social media pages, and he has built up a large following on Instagram and TikTok in particular.
The chocolatier is just shy of 30,000 followers on both profiles respectively, but his videos have been shared all over the internet with his most popular video receiving 3.2 million views on TikTok.
Jack was studying Law but reconsidered his options after he completed his first year of studies.
“I did a year and I wasn’t enjoying it. I knew I’d always liked food and gradually got more interested the more I made. It was a big jump to drop out but I thought I need to do it, or I’ll never know.”
Jack’s first job was as a chef and this is where he found his love for pastries, desserts and most importantly chocolate. However, he didn’t like the pressure or unsocial hours so left and began working at BeChocolat in Brighton to pursue his newfound passion.
This didn’t last long as he was sacked after just four days, but this inspired Ralph.
“Apparently I wasn’t learning fast enough? This made me angry, so I just thought I’ll do it myself then. I already had this idea of having my own business, so this just motivated me to go teach myself. I learnt via trial and error with a lot of practise.”
Jack then started his business, alongside working at Truffles Bakery in Hailsham to save some funds for the day he could pursue his project full time. This came sooner than he expected though as he lost his job after a few months, but this didn’t stop him.
“This came as a blessing in disguise as I had savings built up that could last me maybe six months. I thought I’d just work on the business as if things didn’t work out, I could just go get another job but luckily it has!”
Jack is known for his bonbon creations with vibrant styles and flavours and these were a huge hit on social media. As he had more time to grow the business, his socials grew with him and he started to go viral. This massively helped the exposure of the brand and put his work out there.
“It’s a weird feeling when it goes viral. My first viral TikTok was just me cracking out these bonbons and the camera quality was poor. At the time I only had a few hundred followers, but it just happened really fast.”
“I posted it and at first, nothing. After a few hours there were hundreds of thousands of views and the next day there were millions. I was watching these notifications pour in and thinking why? I guess it’s something unusual to see and the lack of editing makes it feel more real”.
Regarding the future of ArtChocolat, Ralph revealed:
