The Whole Truth brings to you a chocolate unlike any other - India’s first Date-Sweetened Dark Chocolate range

India, 18 April 2022: If you're a die-hard chocolate lover but you're torn between gorging on some luscious chocolate and watching your sugar intake, here's the perfect chocolatey treat for you. India’s first 100% clean-label food brand, The Whole Truth Foods (TWT), has launched the country’s first-ever range of ‘Date-Sweetened Dark Chocolate’ made from only two base ingredients - cocoa beans and dates. This wide range of bean-to-bar dark chocolates is crafted in-house (read: in their own chocolate factory), is sweetened only with dates, and contains no added sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Generally perceived to be a “healthier” type of chocolate, the whole truth about dark chocolate is that it also contains a lot of sugar. Even if the bar is 70% dark chocolate, the rest of the 30% (everything apart from the cocoa) is often just sugar (usually refined) plus some emulsifiers. And if not sugar, manufacturers use FOS (fructo-oligo-saccharides) or artificial flavours (in which case, you’d wish it was sugar). Bearing this in mind and driven by its love for chocolates, The Whole Truth created this disruptive range of dark chocolate bars and became the first ever brand to do so.

TWT’s bean-to-bar concept

TWT aimed to deliver not just a healthier choice of chocolate to its customers but a truly elevated and decadent experience through its dark chocolates while eliminating the guilt (and the nasty insulin spike). This, coupled with the fact that the brand also wanted to ensure that its audience got exactly what the label said, led TWT to set uphold your breath! - its very own bean-to-bar chocolate factory! 

About 18 months ago, when the TWT team decided to create a chocolate that was sweetened only with dates, they had a tough challenge to manoeuvre. They were absolutely sure they didn't want to use added sugar or artificial sweeteners. Just dates. However, dates are quite fibrous so achieving that perfectly smooth texture of rich chocolate called for 4X longer conch-time. And that meant that every batch of this chocolate had to be continuously ground for upto 22 hours! From start to end, the process of making this date-sweetened chocolate brought along numerous hurdles, however, TWT overcame every single one of them.

And now that TWT has its own chocolate factory in Mumbai, it holds the reins to the entire production process and has succeeded in creating additive-free, indulgent goodies for its customers.

Behind the Scenes

The two ingredients that enter this mini-chocolate factory are the finest single-origin cocoa beans from Idukki in Kerala and imported, non-GMO Saudi dates. Also, all the processes—from winnowing, roasting and cracking the cocoa beans, to de-pitting and churning the dates, to conching and tempering the chocolate—are carried out in-house.  

Unlike the widely used compound chocolate that has hydrogenated edible fats and is loaded with chemicals and stabilisers, TWT’s dark chocolates are couverture (pure) - making for a divine chocolate eating experience, they are vegan and contain nutrient-rich cocoa butter that melts sensationally in the mouth. With only two base ingredients of chocolate and dates, the brand offers a wide range of couverture dark chocolate variants. Hazelnut, Seasalt, Orange and Almond Raisin (55% and 71% dark) - take your pick!

Fun Fact - The TWT date-sweetened chocolate does not look like your regular bar of chocolate. As you open the pack, you will find a bar with unequal pieces, but that's not by accident. It is by design. To encourage healthy eating and enable portion control. So each of TWT’s dark chocolate bars is crafted with assortedly-sized pieces of XS (extra small), S (small), M (medium), L (large), XL (extra large) and XXL (extra-extra-large). That's TWT's gallant way of telling you not to give in to your cravings, and indulge mindfully, not mindlessly.

Packed with oodles of love and some exciting elements of surprise, TWT's chocolate packaging is as pleasing as is the chocolate itself! Once you're done adoring the sweet treat in there, you will find yourself amused at seeing the fascinating journey of the 'making of the chocolate' - start to end - printed inside this uber-cool, innovative pack! There's also a tiny barcode that you can scan to… well that's for you to find out!

With its out-of-the-box thinking and unswerving attitude, TWT gave us something worthwhile. From stepping into an uncharted territory to create a chocolate like never before to working with a sweetener as fibrous as dates, TWT has dynamically revolutionised the face of dark chocolates for a sinful yet guilt-free chocolate experience.

About The Whole Truth

The Whole Truth (TWT) is India’s first and only 100% clean label brand. They create food so clean, that they list each and every ingredient that goes into it, upfront (not hidden at the back in the microscopic font). Brands hide what goes into their food because they have something to hide. In the name of ‘healthy,’ we're all being sold a bunch of self-serving half-truths by food brands all around us. TWT plans to change that. And they’re going to do this by telling The Whole Truth. Warts n’all. The 5-6 ingredients listed on the front of their packs are the only things that go into their food. Anything else is a strict no. No added sugar, no chemicals, no sweeteners, no hiding, no bullsh*t. Just a handful of simple, natural ingredients your mom would approve of.

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