Endless Food Co has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding to advance its modern chocolate various, THIC (This Isn’t Chocolate), geared toward tackling sustainability and provide chain points within the chocolate business.
The funding spherical was led by Nordic Foodtech VC, with participation from EIFO and Rockstart, and can allow the corporate to scale manufacturing, set up a pilot plant, and develop its workforce.
Countless Meals Co’s THIC is made out of ‘upcycled’ brewer’s spent grain, a main byproduct of beer brewing, and serves as a sustainable, cost-effective various to conventional chocolate. In contrast to cacao, which faces rising provide challenges on account of local weather change, THIC is positioned as a scalable resolution that reduces reliance on cacao and addresses environmental and moral considerations within the chocolate business.
”Our core mission is to supply a scrumptious, long-term, and price-friendly resolution for the current chocolate and meals industries. Hopefully sooner or later, we can assist coat each Mars bar with our various chocolate resolution,” says Maximillian Bogenmann, Co-founder and CEO of Countless Meals Co. “Till then, providing a flavour-first, sustainable various to chocolate on a big scale presents an enormous alternative to positively impression our current meals system. Partnering with a forward-thinking retailer like 7-Eleven offers us an incredible first step towards realising the Countless imaginative and prescient.”
Based in 2022 by Maximillian Bogenmann, Christian Bach, and Matt Orlando, Countless Meals Co leverages its founders’ culinary experience from eating places comparable to Noma and The Fats Duck. The corporate’s strategy to scalable upcycling options highlights how sustainability and indulgence can doubtlessly coexist, providing an answer to chocolate’s mounting challenges.
Countless Meals Co has additionally introduced a key industrial partnership with 7-Eleven Denmark to deliver its product to market. The collaboration will initially function a sequence of THIC-based merchandise, together with a co-branded cookie with TIM’s Cookies, accessible in all 180 Danish 7-Eleven places by the top of the 12 months.
Jesper Østergaard, CEO of 7-Eleven Denmark, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership: “7 – Eleven is consistently exploring new alternatives and difficult the standard approach of doing issues. In our eyes, THIC is a really thrilling product as a result of it’s a extra sustainable various to chocolate – with out compromising on nice style. We’re excited to supply our clients THIC in our cookies as early as subsequent month – and with out giving all of it away , I’m fairly positive they’ll sit up for extra of this sort in our shops sooner or later.”
In line with Countless Meals Co, the standard chocolate business is underneath strain, with cacao costs greater than doubling over the previous 12 months on account of climate-induced disruptions within the international provide chain. Moreover, the sector faces important moral and environmental points, together with deforestation, biodiversity loss, and labour exploitation.
THIC supplies a possible resolution, providing the identical style and texture as conventional chocolate however with as much as 80-90% decrease carbon emissions, in response to a current life cycle evaluation.
“Countless Meals Co is a good guess within the various cacao area. Their components playbook aligns fantastically with our technique round backing founders fixing the deep underlying issues in our international meals system: Cacao is a local weather – threatened crop that may grow to be costlier as provide turns into scarcer and demand continues to extend,” says Louise Rørbæk Heiberg from Nordic Foodtech VC. “We’re proud to assist this high-powered and impactful workforce of their journey as they develop and develop, beginning wi th this key partnership with 7-Eleven. And let’s be clear , they’ve nailed the style and high quality from the start.”
