Did you know we’ve been making delicious chocolates for almost a hundred years? In fact, our very first shop was opened in Sheffield by Joseph William Thornton, who handed the keys to his teenage sons Norman and Stanley and said:

“Make this the best sweet shop in town!”

Well, they didn’t do a bad job, did they?

Over the next few years, as Thorntons got a name for itself, we created a uniquely rich and chewy ‘special’ toffee, that became so popular it became the fuel of the city’s steelworkers. And later, just after the Second World War, they hired one of Europe’s finest chocolatiers, Walter Willem, to bring Europe’s finest soft-centred chocolates to the UK and created Continental.

Today, we’re based in Derbyshire, employ some 4,000 chocolate lovers around the UK and we’re proud to be one of the best-loved and oldest names on the high street. But we haven’t forgotten our roots. We still make our extra special toffee and we’re still famous for our delicious Continentals. Most importantly, the joy and wide-eyed wonder of two small boys running a sweet shop remains at the heart of everything we do, constantly surprising us with new and ever more amazing recipes.

As you can probably tell, we’re really passionate about chocolate and we’d like to share a bit of that passion with you. In this section, we invite you to find out more about one of the world’s favourite foods and what it is we do here at Thorntons...

For nearly 100 years, Hallmark Cards, Inc. has helped people connect with one another and give voice to their feelings. Our employees are personally passionate about caring, creativity, quality and innovation, values that have guided us from the start and remain at our core.

We're best known for greeting cards, but we're much more than that. Our products include paper party supplies, gifts and wrapping paper… ornaments and decorative items for the home… memory-keeping picture frames, albums and scrapbooks… e-cards and customized photo cards... even a cable television channel. We're with you at holidays and any-days, at your most important milestones and unexpected occasions, when you want to share a laugh and when you seek to offer comfort.

We're privately held, and committed to remaining so. We're family-owned with third-generation family leadership taking us into the 21st century.