LONDON, 13 September, 2022 – WNWN Food Labs, the first to bring cacao-free chocolate to market, announced today it has won the award for Best Finished Product at the 2022 World Confectionery Conference in Brussels.

The World Confectionery Awards honored five companies in categories such as packaging and innovation in ingredients to celebrate excellence within the confectionery industry. The awards were open to companies globally.

“As the internal judging panel for the World Confectionery Awards noted last month, there had been a broad range of contenders vying to be named the best in the business. This certainly extended into the finished product category,” said Neill Barston, editor at Confectionery Production magazine. “The company offered samples of its winning entry to attendees at our Brussels event, with its debut range having notes of sticky toffee pudding, dates, cherries, and a rich, buttery finish.”

“To be selected the winner in a competition alongside global chocolate brands says that not only can we produce a more sustainable and ethical version of chocolate, but there’s absolutely no sacrifice in flavour, aroma, mouthfeel, or any other metrics by which good chocolate may be judged,” said WNWN CTO Dr. Johnny Drain. “We set out to make an alternative to commoditized cacao that can be used as a one-to-one replacement, but now we must ask, can we produce flavour profiles that go beyond what’s possible with cacao and conventional chocolate?”

WNWN (pronounced “win-win”) has already released two cacao-free chocolate products to the public: a box of dark choc thins and the Waim! bar, its take on the classic Daim bar. Its proprietary process applies traditional fermentation techniques to sustainable, widely available plant-based ingredients to create cacao-free chocolate that tastes, melts, snaps and bakes just like chocolate. Its formula is vegan, caffeine-free, gluten-free, palm oil-free, lower in sugar than comparable products, and safe for dogs since it contains no theobromine.

Consumers are increasingly concerned about deforestation, habitat destruction, and unfair labor practices in the conventional chocolate supply chain. More than a million child laborers are estimated to work in Ivory Coast and Ghana, where three-quarters of the world’s cacao is grown. Cacao crops are also vulnerable due to climate change, including rising temperatures and reduced rainfall, which has led experts to predict chocolate shortages in the coming years.

Along with pursuing supply relationships, WNWN plans to explore how other foods can be future-proofed from changing climates, biodiversity loss, and from production monopolies that pay unfair wages and foster poor working conditions. These include coffee, tea and vanilla, which each have supply chains mired in unethical and unsustainable practices.

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About WNWN Food Labs (WNWN)

WNWN, a UK food tech startup addressing critical problems in food supply chains, creates a win-win situation for consumers, workers, producers, and the planet. The London-based food tech company uses fermentation to transform plant-based whole foods and unloved ingredients into delicious, sustainable foods. For more information visit www.wnwnfoodlabs.com.

 

Contact:

Gary Smith

Evolotus PR

818-783-0569

gary@evolotuspr.com