Chocolate company wins contract with Aldi on Channel 4 show

An Ely couple who started a chocolate business with the mission to improve the lives of people with autism will have their products sold at Aldi stores after winning a life-changing contract. Husband and wife duo, Shaz Shah and Mona, won a contract for their company Harry Specters on the Channel 4 programme, Aldi’s Next Big Thing.

The pair started their business in 2011 after realising chocolate making was the perfect structured work for their son Ash, now 24, who is autistic. Their hope is to provide employment and work experience for individuals with autism.

In 2019 the chocolatiers won a competition run by the Grafton Centre in Cambridge, called Grow at the Grafton, which gave them space to set up in one of the available units. Between 2014 and 2019 the local social enterprise won 29 industry awards for their handcrafted luxury chocolates.

The bars are available in three different flavours, including Milk Sea Salt Caramel, Milk Peanut Butter and Dark Orange. All of the chocolate is made at the company’s headquarters in Ely. They will now be sold in Aldi stores across the country for £2.49 per bar.

Shaz said: “Social impact wise, it’s going to be massive. When we told our team of autistic workers that we were going to be supplying Aldi it just filled them with confidence. It was truly amazing.”

Mona added: “We wanted to do something not just for him [Ash] but others like him. We looked up some statistics and found 85 per cent of autistic people are unemployed and 61 per cent of them are desperate to work.”