Can you explain the idea behind your range of truffles?
Carey Davis-Munro: The raison d’être behind Nutritious Delicious is to create wonderful-tasting food using some of the most nutrient-dense ingredients available. We are primarily focused on optimum nutrition without self denial and all the flavour that accompanies the inclusion of super foods.
Having run a series of food clinics for mums based on the premise of cooking easy, fast and highly nutritious foods (with three young children of my own) at Easter time that year, I gathered a selection of exotic super foods in my own kitchen and set about creating a chocolate truffle with a difference. The result: I broke two blenders trying to fulfil orders over the next six months and decided to take the chocolate to a bigger market.
The nutritional benefits go beyond just cocoa. Can you explain how?
Davis-Munro: By careful choice of selected ingredients. I purposely experimented with the exotic, rich Peruvian fruit Lucuma, which is wonderfully creamy and a natural source of vitamins and minerals, maca (a root and an adaptogen like ginseng) which we also use, and which will work with the needs of your body, carob as well as cacao which is again a nutrient-dense ingredient with many other possible benefits, seeds and nuts boasting rich omegas and grape seed oil.
Our recent nutritional analysis shows the truffles contain a minimum of 15% RDA magnesium and zinc and the total omegas exceed the total fat content. However, we’re not about calorie counting, only optimum nourishment.
Products made from chocolate are notoriously high in sugar. How do you avoid this, and does this affect the aesthetics/taste/shelf life of the final product?
Davis-Munro: Our product started out as a raw chocolate and we used only agave (from the agave plant) to sweeten it. As we have migrated to a factory product to enable us to reach a wider audience, we have had to adapt the product, but without compromising our values. We now coat in 74% dark chocolate, which does contain some sugar (boasting high antioxidant and polyphenol values) and as we have always done, use agave in our ganache to minimise the use of sugar as far as possible.
Part of the reason for changing the recipe was to make it a product that was appealing to the mainstream in respect of mouthfeel and taste, and overall expectation from a chocolate. The shelf life is the same as any other chocolate that contains nuts.
Can the principles you use to manufacture this range of truffles be implemented in the beverage industry? Is this an area you’re looking to break into?
Davis-Munro: We have many plans for brand extension since chocolate was just a starting point for us, but we will remain true to the same principles throughout. We’re not looking for expansion simply for the sake of expansion, but do believe there is much room for development in the area of optimum nutrition and what fuel we all put into our bodies every day.
If you and your children can eat chocolate that’s so much better for you, then why wouldn’t you? Our values will carry over to any and all products we develop, but the key point about so-called ‘functional foods’ is that they have to taste as good if not better than the alternatives out there, or people will not commit. And this is world’s away from GM foods. No vitamins, minerals or essential fats have been artificially added, which some companies are doing. This is about naturally good food. That’s why we assert time and again, Nutritious Delicious is not about self denial – it’s about food that not only tastes better but is better, and therefore makes you feel better.
What are the biggest challenges facing the confectionery industry? How will you overcome these challenges?
Davis-Munro: Chocolate consumption and particularly good chocolate is on the increase according to all reports, so in that respect we are positive. It remains to be seen how the mainstream takes to functional foods in the long-term and how attitudes to food change over the next 5-10 years.
Lifestyles are not going to slow down and people will still be inclined to grab food on-the-go and pick ready made lines. Our challenge is to ensure there are alternatives that are just as good and offer the same top-level benefits to people, along with a whole host more nutritionally.
One of the issues is that good food is not the cheapest and our ingredients come at a premium price. Nuts also have shot up in cost over the last two years.
Personally, our challenges (among many other things) come from getting the right messages across to our audience so we can differentiate ourselves and communicate our USPs, and since we only had our product ready eight months ago, to extend our reach to the market.
Rebecca Prescott is editorial assistant and news editor at FoodBev Media
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