WNWN Food Labs, the first to bring cocoa-free chocolate to market, today announced it won ‘Best Demo’ in the Häagen-Dazs Start-Up Innovation Challenge, a competition by EIT Food, the world’s largest food innovation community, to address key challenges in environmental sustainability and health.
WNWN presented its developments to Häagen-Dazs (a brand of General Mills) in the category of ice cream with the lowest carbon footprint in the final phase of the competition on 13 June at the Arras Technical Center in Arras, France, the hub of innovation for the Häagen-Dazs brand.
WNWN offered nine preparations using its cocoa-free chocolate including three versions of choc hazelnut ice cream: a treat encased in WNWN’s smooth vegan milk choc/hazelnut shell with WNWN’s choc chips inside; in a tub; and smaller, bite-sized pieces.
“The numbers don’t lie: chocolate itself generates more emissions per kilogram than dairy, so switching just that one ingredient dramatically reduces ice cream’s overall carbon footprint without requiring any other production changes,” said WNWN CEO Ahrum Pak. “Our cocoa-free chocolate is a simple one-to-one replacement for the chocolate formats General Mills currently uses.”
WNWN and nine other companies were selected as finalists from more than 160 start-ups from across Europe and partner countries.
WNWN employs a proprietary fermentation process to transform widely available plant-based ingredients like cereals and legumes to create cocoa-free choc that tastes, melts, snaps and bakes just like conventional chocolate. It is vegan, caffeine-free, gluten-free, palm oil-free, and lower in sugar than comparable products.
According to an internal lifecycle analysis, WNWN’s dark choc emits 80-90% less greenhouse gases than conventional chocolate, and does not contribute to deforestation, habitat destruction, and unfair labour practices like the conventional chocolate supply chain. Cocoa crops are also highly vulnerable due to climate change, including rising temperatures and reduced rainfall, which has led experts to predict chocolate shortages in the coming years as well as higher prices.
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