Specialty Food Magazine

Flavor Vacation With travel not quite peaking, consumers have been eating their way around the globe, and products with exotic ingredients like spices, tropicals, and florals are making unexplored and nontraditional combinations as desirable as the classics. At The Xocolate Bar in Berkeley, California, customers are all about flavors that are exotic, umami, spicy, and boozy. Products made with ingredients of origin are also in demand, especially from the Philippines. "Auro Chocolate has hit the mark with its Moringa Pinipig white chocolate," says Malena Lopez-Maggi, owner of The Xocolate Bar. Made from bean-to-bar in Laguna, Philippines, it contains roasted pinipig, a flattened glutinous rice that is a popular topping in Filipino desserts. Other sought-after flavors of the Philippines include tropical calamansi lime and turon—a classic Filipino dessert of banana lumpia with caramel— represented in bars by Theo & Philo. "As travel remains cumbersome, 'staycation' inspired sweets will also continue to be big," adds Lopez-Maggi, whose house-made Glamper's Trail Mix, curated tasting kits with chocolates hailing from Europe to America, and fruit jellies from Products Recently Introduced to Market Cacao Barry's WholeFruit Chocolate Evocao. Evocao is a couverture chocolate made with 100 percent cacaofruit and contains 40 percent less sugar than most dark chocolate. Through collaboration with Cabosse Naturals, which upcycles the pulp and peel of the cacaofruit into pure cacaofruit ingredients and collaborates closely with local cacaofruit farming communities in Ecuador, this chocolate has fruity notes similar to exotic fruits. cacao-barry.com Elements Truffles Sea Salt with Turmeric. Crafted with Sea Salt from Cervia, a small town on Italy's Adriatic coast, turmeric from India, and cacao from Ecuador, this small-batch, dairy- free 70 percent dark organic chocolate bar has 5 grams of sugar per serving. Made with organic raw cacao butter, raw honey, organic raw cacao powder, organic turmeric root powder, sea salt, and Himalayan pink salt. elementstruffles.com Endangered Species 75% Cocoa Oat Milk, Mixed Berries + Dark Chocolate. Made with creamy oat milk, blueberries, raspberries, and ethically sourced chocolate, this Non-GMO Project Verified bar is low in sugar and does not contain artificial sweeteners or stevia. Endangered Species partners with nonprofit wildlife and conservation organizations and 10 percent of net profits go towards saving wildlife. chocolatebar.com Gigantic Bar Smashing Pumpkin. The newest flavor to the Gigantic Bar line, Smashing Pumpkin is made with fair trade dark chocolate, plant-based caramel, and has 7 grams of sugar and no artificial ingredients. These "sortasweet" bars appeal to a more health-conscious candy consumer. giganticcandy.com HiP Oat Milk Chocolate. HiP, an acronym for Happiness in Chocolate, is a UK company founded by Gen Zer James Cadbury, the great-great- great grandson of John Cadbury, founder of Cadbury Chocolate. HiP's bars are made with gluten-free oat milk and ethically sourced cacao from a family-owned farm in Columbia. Flavors include Cookies no Cream, Salty Pretzel, Salted Caramel, and Original. hipchocolate.com Jelly Belly BeanBoozled Fiery Five. Inspired by the increase in love for spicy foods, Fiery Five includes five true-to-life flavors: sriracha, jalapeño, cayenne, habanero, and Carolina Reaper. Each candy tastes like the actual pepper or sauce while simultaneously building an appropriate level of heat. Not for children under age 13. jellybelly.com Numa Foods Peanut Butter Black Sesame Bars. Bridging Asian and American snacks, these individually wrapped bars are a twist on sesame, which is a classic ingredient for Asian desserts. Earthy and nutty, this crispy Asian candy has nothing artificial and offers 3 grams of protein. The company also offers all-natural, less-sugar nougat that is inspired by the classic Asian White Rabbit Milk candy. numafoods.com Sanders Organic Dairy Free Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels. Sanders takes coconut cream and coconut oil and turns them into a silky caramel that's covered in 70% cacao dark chocolate and sprinkled with coarse sea salt in this vegan confection. sanderscandy.com SunRidge Farms Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Malt Balls. Made with real almond butter, sustainably sourced dark chocolate, and real vanilla, with a crispy non-GMO malt ball center. No artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives, and free from hydrogenated oils. Reclosable standup BPA-free bags are recyclable. sunridgefarms.com TruFru Nature's Pineapple Pina Colada. Only 70 calories per serving, TruFru Pineapple ripens on the vine to maximize taste and is freshly frozen to lock in nutrition. Immersed in white chocolate and coconut, it is hyper-chilled to enhance flavor. Non-GMO, and gluten-free. trufru.com Endangered Species 75% Cocoa Oat Milk, Mixed Berries + Dark Chocolate 32 SPECIALTY FOOD SPECIALTYFOOD.COM CATEGORY SPOTLIGHT

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