Sorrel's Cocoa Bakery has a club now

Sorrel's Cocoa Bakery is live on Flub, and we couldn't be happier to say so.

It's not a story that happened overnight. And, as these things go, it was comically characterised with two false starts. We'll get to those. First, you need to know who we're talking about.

Eight years in the making

Sorrel started the way plenty of the best food businesses do: as a market trader, making chocolate and selling it from a stall. Then the stall became a permanent place of her own. The permanent place gained an online shop. The online shop gained a commercial kitchen, so the chocolate could travel a good deal further than any one market ever would. Each step was a bigger bet than the last.

Eight years in the making - and launching the Cocoa Club is a next step in the story. On announcing it, the comments flew in. Everyone piled in to say how excited they were. Nobody needed talking round.

The false starts

The first false start was the poster.

Sorrel had printed a QR poster and put it up well before the club was ready to go. We'd have called that being organised. Her customers called it an invitation. They spotted the poster, pulled out their phones and tried to sign up to a club that didn't exist yet.

We'd love to say it was a teaser campaign. It wasn't. We hadn't planned a thing. It was the nicest kind of problem to have: a queue forming outside a door we hadn't unlocked.

Launch day, no link

The second false start was the missing link.

On launch day, the usual move is to post the link everywhere and hope for the best. Sorrel didn't post one. No link, nothing to tap, nothing to click.

What she posted was a photo of the poster, and instantly people started signing up - they zoomed in on the picture, found the QR code, and and got to it directly from the Instagram post.

That's all Sorrel. It isn't a trick of ours, and it isn't a clever bit of marketing. When people will squint at a photograph to find your club, the hard part is already behind you. It's eight years of making something people go looking for.

Sign-ups have been rolling in ever since.

Thanks, Sorrel

Sorrel has been right alongside us through the whole run-up to launch, and Flub is richer for it. It's a rare pleasure to watch someone spend eight years building a brand, and then entrust that brand with Flub.

Congratulations, Sorrel. Welcome to Flub.

If you're nearby - Sheffield, Crookes - pop in and say hello. And of course - join the club.

sorrelscocoabakery.com

sorrels-cocoa-bakery.flub.to/join

Want a club of your own?

Every good place has a handful of regulars who'd sign up in a heartbeat. Start yours at useflub.com.