As of 30 October 2026, Haigh's Chocolates has confirmed two more Brisbane stores at Westfield Chermside and Westfield Carindale, adding to its first Queensland site at Westfield Mt Gravatt, which opened in August and drew hundreds of customers on day one. The South Australian chocolatier is pushing into the Christmas trading period with a $120 million production and logistics facility opened last year behind it.
Why two mall sites beat one flagship
A flagship concentrates traffic but caps the trade area it can serve. Two mid-sized mall stores spread the same brand across two catchments, cut the delivery distance for replenishment, and let the retailer test gifting demand in two centres before committing to a third. For a premium food brand, that is cheaper than one oversized site.
The trade area logic matters more than store count. Chermside and Carindale sit in different suburban catchments with different gifting behaviour, so the same range can be tested against two shopper profiles. If one site outperforms on hampers and the other on self-purchase, the next store selection decision already has evidence behind it.
What the new plant changes about store fill rates
Store openings are only as good as the fill rate behind them. A $120 million production and logistics facility gives the brand more control over batch timing, which matters for a product with a short shelf life and a hard Christmas deadline. Fill rate, not footfall, is what decides whether a new store earns its rent in the first quarter.
The plant also changes the cost of a mistake. When production is outsourced, a wrong range decision shows up as a stockout or a markdown; when production is in-house, the same decision shows up as wasted capacity. That pushes the brand towards narrower ranges per store and faster replenishment between sites.
Chilled logistics is the real constraint
Chocolate is temperature sensitive, which means the constraint is not the truck but the last kilometre into a mall. Loading docks, chilled storage and staff training all have to be in place before a store can hold full range. Brands that treat mall tenancy as a marketing decision rather than a logistics one usually end up with a reduced range on shelf.
Festive gifting is a four week window
Christmas gifting compresses a year of demand into roughly four weeks. A store that opens in November has almost no time to build local awareness before the peak, which is why the two Brisbane sites are being announced now rather than in January. Timing is the single largest variable in whether a new store pays back in year one.
Gifting also changes the assortment maths. Hampers and boxed ranges take more shelf space per unit of revenue than everyday bars, so the same floor plan produces very different sales depending on how much space is allocated to gift packs. Getting that split wrong in the first festive season is expensive to correct later.
| Site | Format | Status | Catchment focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westfield Mt Gravatt | Mall store | Open since August 2026 | South Brisbane |
| Westfield Chermside | Mall store | Announced | North Brisbane |
| Westfield Carindale | Mall store | Announced | South east Brisbane |
Read as a set, the three sites form a triangle around Brisbane rather than a cluster. That shape reduces cannibalisation between stores and shortens the replenishment run from a single distribution point. It also means each store can carry a slightly different gifting range without confusing the shopper.
How to score a trade area before signing
Before signing a lease, the useful question is not how many people walk past the door but how many of them buy premium food as gifts. Mall footfall data rarely answers that. What does answer it is a combination of household income bands, existing gifting spend in the catchment and the distance to the nearest competing premium food tenant.
Two metrics that predict a dud site
Two numbers flag a weak site early: the share of footfall arriving after 7pm, and the ratio of food court traffic to specialty retail traffic. A site where almost all traffic is evening food-led will sell self-purchase blocks but very few hampers. Checking those two ratios before signing is cheaper than discovering them in the first Christmas.
FAQ
What is Haigh's adding in Brisbane？
Two mall stores at Westfield Chermside and Westfield Carindale, on top of the Mt Gravatt store that opened in August 2026. The three sites form a triangle around the city rather than a single cluster.
Why open before Christmas rather than after？
Gifting compresses demand into roughly four weeks. A store opening in November still catches the peak; a store opening in January waits a full year for its first festive season, which delays payback.
What decides whether a new store works？
Fill rate and the gifting share of the range, not raw footfall. Temperature-controlled logistics into the mall and the space allocated to hampers determine revenue per square metre more than passing traffic does.
How should a trade area be scored？
Weight footfall by household income and gifting propensity, map competing premium food tenants, and model replenishment cost from the nearest distribution point. Re-score quarterly as the tenant mix changes.
