Sweet like chocolate: Sarah Adams of Queen Anne
In 2025, Christchurch company Queen Anne Chocolates is celebrating its 100th birthday. Owned by the granddaughter of one of New Zealand’s most iconic bakers, Ernest Adams, Sarah Adams tells Metropol deputy editor Tamara Pitelen about this hard-won milestone.
The year is 1921, and a bright-eyed, young Ernest Adams is striding up Tuam Street to answer an advertisement for a bakery up for sale. The youngest of seven sons from a family of bakers in Somerset, England, Ernest is a recent immigrant looking to make a life in the bustling city of Christchurch.
The bakery’s owner, Hugh Bruce, built his business from the ground up and was of an age to consider selling. Instead, though, on meeting the dynamic young Ernest, Hugh offers him a partnership. A deep friendship is sparked, which becomes the basis of a thriving business and is the seed of what was to become the Ernest Adams baking empire.
From successful bakeries, the entrepreneurial pair expanded into chocolates and in 1925, the Queen Anne brand was born (originally Hugh’s idea, ironic given that he was diabetic and couldn’t eat chocolate). At its height, there were 100 Queen Anne Chocolate retail shops and agents throughout New Zealand.
Fast forward 100 turbulent years to 2025, and the brand is celebrating its centenary, thanks to the tenacity and vision of Ernest’s determined granddaughter, Sarah Adams. In 1976, the doors of the Queen Anne Chocolate factory were closed, and the brand was indefinitely shelved. Sarah revived the business in 1998, taking it from strength to strength. “When I first started, people said to me, ‘Why are you doing this? You won’t have a business in five years,’” Sarah says.
THE BAKING GENE
Sarah’s journey into the world of confectionery began with the Ernest Adams factory.
“As a very little girl, I loved going to the factory with my grandparents. After my grandfather retired, every week he and my grandmother would go. They knew everybody by name; he’d walk around and ask them how they were. It was a real treat if I could go, because people would slip me a bit of this and that. In the icing department they had those beautiful little icing flowers, I’d come away with a handful of them.” Later, as a teenager in the early 1980s, Sarah joined Ernest Adams as a baking apprentice.
“Technically, I was what was called an adult apprentice, because I was in my late teens. In those days, most apprentices started at 15,” she recalls. “I was one of only two girls doing baker apprenticeships in the whole of New Zealand at the time.” After her apprenticeship, Sarah explored chocolate-making while working at a Swiss bakery in Melbourne. “I didn’t realise how important that experience would become,” she says. Years later, after returning to New Zealand, she found herself asking: what next?
Fate intervened in the form of an unusual request: Sarah was asked to write a short biography of her grandfather for the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography. That research ignited something deeper. “The whole thing was only about four pages, yet it took me six months to write. I got so distracted by the history. I learned so much about him, his life and what he did. I went to libraries, looking through the old microfiche, and found old ads for Queen Anne, and I found contacts. As well, people would keep saying to me, ‘Whatever happened to Queen Anne chocolates?’
Sarah’s biography project evolved into the decision to bring back Queen Anne. “Over those six months, I thought to myself, ‘Ah, chocolates are just like cake.’ So I made myself a list. ‘I’m going to need the recipes, the packaging, and someone who can make it for me.’ Then I pretty much wrote myself a marketing plan for contract manufacturing and set it up.” By Christmas of 1998, Queen Anne boxed chocolates were back on the shelves.
There were hurdles, though. The Queen Anne trademark was owned by a West Coast ice cream company, so Sarah struck a deal, securing the chocolate rights in exchange for helping them relaunch Queen Anne Ice Cream using the original recipes. Though the ice cream venture fizzled due to complex frozen logistics, Sarah eventually bought the brand outright.
For the first few years, Queen Anne operated through contract manufacturing. Everything changed after the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011. Sarah and her team moved into a bricks-and-mortar factory, learning the machines and crafting chocolates in-house. “I read all the manuals on how to use the machines, but doing it yourself, that’s a different story.” It was a leap of faith, but a natural evolution to do the manufacturing in Christchurch.
Queen Anne’s success is a testament to the loyalty of its customers and the innovation that has helped it stay relevant over the years. “We’re not just about Christmas or Easter anymore. Our everyday products, like the fish bites, have really made a difference. It’s helped us move away from a seasonal business model, and now we’re more of an everyday luxury,” she says.
NOD TO THE PAST
Today, Sarah no longer works the factory floor. “I’m more the technical backup now,” she says. She’s writing a Queen Anne Essentials manual to pass on decades of experience. “Making chocolate is half art, half science,” she reflects. “And it’s not always easy. It takes time to get it right.”
As Queen Anne marks its 100th anniversary this year, the team has rolled out a series of celebrations to honour the milestone. Last month, a major exhibition was held at Ballantynes department store, showcasing the Queen Anne collection of vintage boxes, photographs, and treasured memorabilia, including an original 50-year-old box of chocolates. Untouched. How? Someone discovered the box in the bottom of their freezer and gifted it back to Sarah. The exhibition is now on show at the Queen Anne office.
They’re even reviving the famous Queen Anne ‘Turtles’, which are round caramels topped with a half walnut and dipped in chocolate, for a limited edition run. It’s these small nods to the past that resonate with their customers. “People still remember buying Queen Anne chocolates for anniversaries, birthdays. It’s more than just a product; it’s about people. Their memories, their milestones, their family traditions.”
The final question must be, does Sarah eat chocolate every day? “I do, how could I not? My favourite? It has to be our marshmallow. If I had to choose a flavour, I’d say the pineapple marshmallow. The milk chocolate with that tangy pineapple flavour, it’s just so good.”
