A CHOCOLATE company which suffered storm damage in the winter floods has bounced back with a new look.

Gale force winds took part of the roof off Auberge du Chocolat's Chesham workshop in January, before the torrential rain poured in to seriously damage the operation.

It took six months for their home at the Chess Business Park in Moor Road to be fully restored.

But the multi award winning company is now back in business and celebrated with an official relaunch on Wednesday, which was attended by 100 people.

They had a go at making chocolate footballs and flowers and watched the firm's chocolatiers get to work on some of the more intricate designs.

Manager director Anne Scott said: "We've been in Chesham a while and trying to build up our presence there by letting people come in and see us.

"We were getting momentum going but right at the beginning of January in one of the very severe storms one of our roof panels was lifted and water just poured in, resulting in a fair amount of damage. It's taken six months for this to be sorted out.

"We decided to have this relaunch do and make it a fun event so people could come and see what we do. About 100 people came - considering we set ourselves the target of 20, we were over the moon."

Chesham Mayor Mohammad Fayyaz cut the ribbon to declare Auberge officially re-open.

Referring to the storm damage Mrs Scott said: "It did set us back quite a bit. Our showroom was a disaster - the carpets had to be torn out and the walls were damaged. We lost a lot of products."

She added: "We do workshops with children, though ironically not that often with schools from Chesham. We had a group in from London the other week.

"We encourage groups to come in - schools, brownies, guides, WI groups - and people to drop in with problems on chocolate and how to put things right.