WNWN Food Labs, the first to bring cocoa-free chocolate to market, today announced it has successfully completed the recipe and process for its forthcoming ‘milk’ chocolate products. In addition to cocoa-free, its milk choc is also dairy-free, and features a blend of oats and tiger nuts as a plant-based alternative.
Like standard milk chocolate, WNWN’s milk choc is sweeter and creamier than its dark counterpart, with notes of mocha, malt and hazelnut, and a buttery finish. Unlike conventional chocolate, WNWN (pronounced ‘win-win’) avoids the child labour, slave labour, deforestation, and outsized carbon footprint of conventional cacoa cultivation and processing, as well as the environmental toll of dairy farming.
Tiger nuts are edible tubers from the grass like Cyperus esculentus, used most commonly in the sweet, milk-like drink horchata. A fast-growing plant with origins in Northern Africa, tiger nuts have a lower water footprint than almonds, soybeans, or even oats. WNWN’s tiger nuts are sustainably sourced from Spain.
Following the debut of its dark choc in May 2022, WNWN has continued its R&D efforts, supplied B2B customers with its choc in various formats, and raised $5.6 million in its second funding round to help gear up for a retail launch this year beginning in the UK.
Said Dr Johnny Drain, CTO, WNWN: “Rather than adding milk to our choc, our team looked at what really makes milk chocolate delicious, and worked with these new ingredients to evoke that creaminess. Mass-market milk chocolate typically uses large amounts of milk powder and sugar to mask the flavour of poor-quality cocoa, and even though our plant-based, cocoa-free product has as much as 50% less sugar we’re confident it stands up to milk chocolate bars already on store shelves.”
WNWN’s milk choc is now available for testing in various applications by CPG companies, restaurants, and other commercial organisations. For more visit wnwnfoodlabs.com
