Danish Startup Partners with 7-Eleven to Debut ‘THIC’ Upcycled Cocoa-Free Chocolate

Copenhagen-based Endless Food Co has raised €1M and teamed up with 7-Eleven Denmark to launch cookies made from its upcycled cocoa-free chocolate.

Turning beer waste into a chocolate alternative, Danish startup Endless Food Co has secured fresh funding and a national listing with 7-Eleven for a new consumer product.

Founded by alums of leading restaurants Amass, Noma and The Fat Duck, the company makes cocoa-free chocolate from brewer’s spent grain (BSG), the solid residue from malted barley after beer production. Called This Isn’t Chocolate (THIC), it’s positioned as a scalable, stable solution to the volatility of the carbon-heavy chocolate industry.

The €1M funding round was led by Nordic Foodtech VC, with EIFO and Rockstart participating as well. It follows an investment from Innovation Fund Denmark in 2023, and will help the startup expand production, set up a pilot plant, and grow its team.

Its planet-friendly chocolate alternative is also part of a cookie made in collaboration with 7-Eleven Denmark, which will end up on the shelves of all its 180 stores across the country.

Taking on the chocolate industry with food waste

Endless Food Co, established in 2022, leverages the vast food industry experience of its co-founders. Matthew Orlando, touted as one of the world’s best chefs, was the owner of Copenhagen’s Amass Restaurant, which was revered for its sustainability efforts. He has previously worked at The Fat Duck, Aureole and Le Bernardin.

Christian Bach, who is the COO and has previously worked at Noma, was a colleague of Orlando’s at Amass (which closed in 2022) – as was CEO Maximillian Bogenmann.

The three were keen to create a solution that tacked chocolate’s climate issues while also making use of food waste, which accounts for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It’s why they turned to BSG.

The byproduct accounts for 85% of the waste produced by the brewing industry, with 36.4 million tonnes of BSG manufactured every year globally. However, 80% of this sidestream is repurposed either into animal feed or biofuel, with the rest ending up in landfill and letting gases like methane and carbon into the atmosphere.

The chocolate industry, meanwhile, is linked to mass deforestation (thanks to the widespread use of palm oil), a problem that has spurred lawmakers in the EU and the UK to ban imports of deforestation-linked cocoa (although the former’s legislation has been delayed).

Dark chocolate also emits more greenhouse gases than lamb or mutton, farmed fish and shrimp, coffee, cheese, pork, and even beef from dairy herds, while it takes 1,700 litres of water to create a 100g bar of chocolate.

Concurrently, climate change is threatening the industry’s future, with crop failures in West Africa already affecting yields this year, leading to all-time-high prices. In fact, scientists have warned that a third of cocoa trees could die out by 2050, leading to a global chocolate shortage.

With THIC, Endless Food Co says it’s looking to create “a future for chocolate that isn’t married to palm oil or deforestation”. The BSG-based cocoa-free product is said to deliver the same taste, texture and functionality as conventional chocolate, but with 80-90% fewer associated emissions, according to a recent life-cycle assessment.

”Our core mission is to provide a delicious, long-term, and price-friendly solution for the existing chocolate and food industries. Hopefully one day, we can help coat every Mars bar with our alternative chocolate solution,” said Bogenmann, as per EU-Startups.

7-Eleven partnership to involve multiple products

THIC can be used in pastries, ice creams, coatings, as well as in combination with conventional chocolate – allowing bakery, restaurant and chocolate industry partners to incorporate the ingredient into their existing processes.

Endless Food Co already has around 10 B2B clients in Denmark, Portugal, Sweden and more, which sold over 10,000 pastries with THIC in the last second half of 2023 alone. In Copenhagen, the cocoa-free chocolate has appeared at Il Buco, La Banchina, Kihoskh, and Kaf.

“Offering a flavour-first, sustainable alternative to chocolate on a large scale presents a huge opportunity to positively impact our existing food system,” Bogenmann said. “Partnering with a forward-thinking retailer like 7-Eleven gives us an amazing first step toward realising the Endless vision.”

At 7-Eleven Denmark, THIC will be part of a series of products, including a co-branded cookie under the Tim’s Cookies label, which will be available at its stores by the end of the year.

“In our eyes, THIC is a truly exciting product because it’s a more sustainable alternative to chocolate – without compromising on great taste,” said 7-Eleven Denmark CEO Jesper Østergaard. “We’re excited to offer our customers THIC in our cookies as early as next month – and without giving it all away, I’m quite sure they can look forward to more of this kind in our stores in the future.”

“Cacao is a climate-threatened crop that will become more expensive as supply becomes scarcer and demand continues to increase,” said Nordic Foodtech VC’s Louise Rørbæk Heiberg. “Endless Food Co is a great bet in the alternative cacao space. Their ingredients playbook aligns beautifully with our strategy around backing founders solving the deep underlying problems in our global food system.”

The development came during a big week for alt-chocolate startups, with Germany’s Planet A Foods banking $30M in Series B funding, while cell-based cocoa player Celleste Bio raised $4.5M in a round that included Mondelēz International.