A FAMILY-RUN business selling chocolate and other confectionary has opened in one of Bradford’s landmark buildings.

La Fronda opened at the Wool Exchange, in the former Thornton’s chocolate store, with a soft launch yesterday before fully opening this weekend.

It will sell sweets with a twist - with many of the products on sale imported from Dubai, Turkey and the Middle East.

Among the items for sale will be exotic dates and baklava, and the business boasts that there will be 26 different types of chocolate on sale.

The Wool Exchange is a Grade I-listed, Gothic revival wool hall on Market Street/Bank Street. It is home to Bradford’s impressive Waterstones branch.

It is currently in the midst of a resurgence of independent businesses. Other Bradford-based businesses to have opened in the building in the past few weeks include independent cafe Tiffin Coffee and The Exchange Ale House, run by Bradford Brewery.

La Fronda is owned by the Ibrahim family, father Kousay and sons Mustapha and Dr Muhammed, who have links to both Bradford and the Middle East. They hope to bring this mix of East and West to their shop.

They say that because many of their products are imported, shoppers are unlikely to find them on the shelves of other high street stores.

Mustapha Ibrahim said: “We will be selling very high quality treats. They are all imported. There are all types of different chocolate that will be sold by weight.

“A lot of these products come from Dubai or Turkey, there are lots of chocolate covered treats. We really want to connect the East and the West.

“We are a 100 per cent family run business. When we were looking for a place to locate the business, we originally looked at the Bullring in Birmingham, but we chose to open here.

“It is exciting to be opening in a building like this that has such a history. Our aim is to really create our own name. At first we were thinking of serving tea and coffee, but we decided we wanted to complement rather than compete with other nearby businesses.

“We’d be delighted to link up with any other businesses to help grow the community.”