Oser Communications Group

1 7 April 2019 SNACKING NEWS Elements Truffles Brings Balance to Indulgent Chocolate BY GREG GONZALES Stopping to take a breath now and then can help us pay attention to our inner voices. That's how Alak Vasa, Co-Founder of El- ements Truffles, says she found her way to making chocolate. She left a career on Wall Street to follow her passion, and now she and her team make truffles and chocolate bars with a mission in mind. Vasa spent more than a decade on Wall Street before she quit to train at Financier Patisserie in Manhattan. A friend had introduced her to meditation, which enabled her to understand herself better, she said. While she appreciated the chance to learn a new craft, she still didn't feel at home. That inner voice kept getting louder, she said, telling her she had to create something of her own. In 2015, she got to work finding the right product. "I never thought I would be making chocolate," said Vasa. "When I quit my job I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I did know I wanted to do something with food and with good food ― food that you can trust, food that you can give to your child and not worry about what they're eating ― and to build a company with val- ues, in terms of the partner- ships, the sourcing of ingredients, the packaging, the people. When we de- cided we wanted to build the company, we wanted to be mindful, to make it a human- centric company." The brand makes chocolates in small batches that are raw, organic, dairy-free, with no refined sugars, preservatives or emulsifiers. Each of its products is made in its New Jersey facility, where they're sweetened with local honey that makes each bite melt slowly. Elements Truffles mixes in essential oils, ginger, black pep- per, beet root, turmeric and lavender into its products. The result is a new kind of flavor experience, and a bar that's less likely to end in a sugar crash. Much of the inspiration for these flavors comes from Ayurvedic eating, something Vasa and her husband learned as kids in Ahmedabad, India. She explained that where most diets are about do-and-don't thinking, Ayurveda is about bringing bal- ance to the diet. "For example, in the fall the air element is dominant, which means that element can go off balance in you very quickly," she said. "So that's when you eat more grounding foods, like beets, sweet po- tatoes, foods that grow in the ground. You eat warm spices too." Beyond providing nutrient-dense, deli- cious chocolate to customers, Elements Truffles also do- nates 25 percent of its profits to the Care for Children project by the Art of Living Foundation, a non-profit. The project helps educate underprivileged kids in India. And it's not just chocolate bars at Ele- ments Truffles. The company also sells Turmeric-Infused Drinking Chocolate, truffles infused with flavors like turmeric or cardamom or lavender, and gift boxes that contain an assortment of all the com- pany's products as well as smaller bars in the Pantry Edition line. All the bars come in a cardboard box, with a fab- ric label hand-stitched onto the box, colored with veg- etable ink. On the back, consumers can read about Ayurveda and Ayurvedic doshas, right above the nu- trition facts. Suggested retail prices are $6.99 for the bars, $4 for Pantry Edition bars, $12 for drinking chocolate, $12 for a small box of truffles and $35 for a large box of truffles. n For Love of Chocolate: DeBrand Fine Chocolates BY LORRIE BAUMANN Cathy Brand-Beere puts a lifetime of expe- rience in confectionery, cakes and choco- lates as well as retail sales into each of the Chocolate Art Boxes for which DeBrand Fine Chocolates, the company she founded in 1987, is well known. The company makes a wide variety of products from Hot Chocolate on a Spoon through chocolate truffles in avant-garde flavors, but the handmade Chocolate Art Boxes stand out as a unique touch of luxury and indulgence. DeBrand's Draped in Gold Art Box, with its 24-karat gold leaf atop the 8-inch diam- eter round box is at the top of the line, the Polka Dot Art Box is decorated with a chocolate ribbon around the edible choco- late box, and the Black Rose Art Box is the chocolate box topped with the chocolate flower. Each has a hand-molded chocolate bowl, and they're available either empty or filled with individual chocolates. But while the items in the Art Box col- lection are DeBrand's top of the line items, the company offers a wide range of arti- sanal chocolates at price points that are ac- cessible to most consumers, even though Brand-Beere insists that she's never ob- sessed about the prices she was charging in her company's five retail stores in Indi- ana or the prices that her wholesale cus- tomers end up charging in their stores. "You can't be the cheapest and the best," she said. "It's quality. It's not cheap, but there's a huge variety of price points, so it works for most retailers." She said that those wholesale customers understand that, just as her experience run- ning DeBrand's own stores gives her in- sight into what other retailers need from her. That's why Brand-Beere is meticulous about providing retailers with the art work and the photography they need to mer- chandise and market their DeBrand selec- tion to retail customers as well as a wide range of products to meet most every price point, so that the DeBrand products can do well in gift shops, gourmet shops and even floral shops around the U.S. "People fall in love with our brand and come back oc- casion after occasion," Brand-Beere said. "It's the repeat business that's really great." DeBrand's selection includes three gift box collections, each with multiple pieces. The Classic Collection, with traditional, classic flavors like Rose Carmella, Gour- met PBJ and Dark Raspberry Cream, is the best-seller, while the Connoisseur Collec- tion includes flavors that will appeal to those who are more trend-forward in their tastes: Rosemary Balsamic, Sesame and Aztec – with its crushed pecan brittle, creamy pecan gianduja and chile dipped in milk chocolate – among them. The Truffle Collection offers flavors like Key Lime Pecan, Caramel and Coconut. "They're almost like eating a mini-dessert, and they're all hand-decorated and filled with various chocolate centers," Brand- Beere said. DeBrand's wide range of snack options includes a couple of bar collections, in- cluding Tasting Bars in flavors like Indi- ana Popcorn, Sweet Heat and Mint Cookie Crunch. They're each segmented in three different sizes of bites: nibble, bite and chunk. DeBrand's Chocolate Thoughts collection of bars, small 1.1- ounce bars that retail for $3.50 each, offer greetings like "Happy Birthday" or "Con- gratulations," so they'll work as a holiday card. Each label is slotted so a business card, gift card or hand-written note can be slipped into it. "That's a really popular add-on for retailers," Brand-Beere said. "We have something for everyone at any price range, from impressive chocolate gifts to impulse items to greeting card substitutes." For more information, email wholesale @debrand.com, call 260.969.8331 or visit www.debrand.com. n

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