The dark chocolates from The Whole Truth Foods will be available in 71% & 55% dark variants in orange, hazelnut, sea salt and almond raising flavours
Mumbai-based healthy food brand The Whole Truth Foods launched India’s first dark chocolate range sweetened with dates. The “100% clean” premium chocolates are made only from two ingredients: single-origin cocoa sourced from Idukku in Kerala and high-quality, non-GMO dates.
The Whole Truth Foods set up its own bean-to-bar chocolate factory in Mumbai for this purpose. The new chocolate range is available in 71% and 55% dark variants in orange, hazelnut, sea salt and almond raising flavours. These chocolates have no added sugar, stevia, fructo-oligosaccharides, compound, maltitol, erythritol or flavours.
The Whole Truth Foods Founder-CEO Shashank Mehta said, “It was about 18 months ago when we decided to create a chocolate that was sweetened only with dates. However, dates are quite fibrous so achieving that perfectly smooth texture of rich chocolate called for 4X longer conch-time. That meant that every batch of this chocolate had to be continuously ground for up to 22 hours! For us, owning every part of the bean-to-bar journey was critical and so we set up our own chocolate factory in Mumbai. After numerous nights burning the midnight oil and countless iterations, we are super proud to introduce India's first dark chocolate naturally sweetened only with dates and without any artificial sweeteners/ added sugar.”
As a prelude to the launch of the 100% date-sweetened dark chocolates, the brand is educating consumers about ‘healthy’ food through a mini-series of super fun videos under “Healthy Foods Vs The Whole Truth” campaign. The Whole Truth Foods also offers other products like nut butters, protein bars, muesli and energy bars – all made with no added sugar, preservatives, gluten or sweeteners.
Valley Culture Raises Rs 2-Cr in Seed Round Funding
Agritech startup Valley Culture raised Rs 2 crore in seed round funding from the TMRW Network. Based out of Dehradun, the startup is promoting a healthy lifestyle by reviving the traditional wholesome foods of Uttarakhand.
With this amount, Valley Culture is planning to set up a complete farm-to-fork ecosystem and help the Himalayan farmers get better price for their farm produce, build market linkages and direct access to consumers. The brand aims to achieve Rs 100-crore turnover in the next 18 months and impact at least 1 million farmers’ lives.
Founded in 2019 by Shikha Prakash and Robin Nagar, Valley Culture currently works with over 4,000 farmers and sells varied products like Himalayan Cultured ghee, honey (Himalayan jungle, lychee and jamun floral), pulses, grains, spices, jaggery powder, water milled flour, millets, pickles and tea.
The startup has its offline presence at Currently, with their offline presence at Taj Rishikesh, Ananda's in the Himalayas, Hyatt Regency Dehradun, Greenr Cafe and many more and retailing the Valley Culture range online from Amazon and their own website.
In a statement, Valley Culture Founder and third generation Ayurvedic practitioner Shikha observed that most lifestyle diseases like “diabetes are a factor of wrong food choices, which are being pushed our way as a result of modern-day marketing through FMCG giants and social media influencers.”
