Founded in 2022 by Maximillian Bogenmann, Christian Bach, and Matt Orlando, Endless Food Co leverages its founders’ culinary expertise of over a decade from restaurants such as Noma and The Fat Duck, restaurants that valued using every possible bit of their ingredients and reducing waste.

Endless Food Co’s THIC (This Isn’t Chocolate) is made from ‘upcycled’ brewer’s spent grain, a primary byproduct of beer brewing, and serves as a sustainable alternative to traditional chocolate. Unlike cacao, which faces growing supply challenges due to climate change, THIC is positioned as a scalable solution.

“The amount of attention from the press that the prices in chocolate spiked has helped us a lot, because there's a greater understanding of why we are doing this. It has helped with momentum and understanding of why we’re doing this and why it's important,” explains for Green Start-up Christian Bach, co-founder of Endless Good Co’s THIC.

The discovery of the non-chocolate out of the `upcycled` brewer’s spent grain was not intentional and not the founders’ goal, but rather something that has happened through a process of trial and error, after they realized how much of this grain was wasted.

Competing with big chocolate brands as a startup

“With a new product we can't compete with big chocolate from the get-go, but we work with raw material that is much cheaper than conventional chocolate, and its less price volatile, so the theory is that with the economy-scaling we can become a cheaper alternative,” says Christian.

The price of cacao beans and chocolate is a very hot topic right now, but the company aims to address multiple crises. The production of the product has significantly less CO2 levels - around 80-90% less than for dark chocolate, for example.

Last year, they secured 1 million euros from Denmark’s 7-Eleven convenience store chain, which has over 180 stores across the country. In Denmark, the food-chain is interested in their CO2 impact and towards working with startups.

“We are new to them because we are not serving an individual, wrapped product, but an ingredient.”

So what they've done was to replace the conventional chocolate in the chocolate chip cookies that have been a best seller in the Danish 7-Eleven for years. The measured success was that they did not hear anything from the customers ever since the slight change of label, where the THIC logo was added.

“The idea here is that 7-Eleven improved their CO2 footprint without rocking the boat. For us the success was that the customers don't really notice - it's the perfect outcome for us. That means there are other products where we could do the same thing, which we’re working to do in the future. This way we get national distribution and the validation that if the customers get a similar experience, they don't care if it's chocolate or if they have a little THIC label.”

When asked about the possibility of alternatives replacing cocoa, Christian believes the food industry is so unbelievably huge that it’s foolish to expect an immediate future where we don't have chocolate. It can only work if both options can co-exist.

For Endless Food, it’s important to work with chocolate manufactures and not use shaming tactics, because they are looking for products where they can replace a fraction of the chocolate, not the entire product. He believes that that is the journey of alternative chocolate, that can bring a higher rate of consumer acceptance and a better product overall.

Plans of expansion in the European market

Right now, the company has a strong focus on Scandinavia and the hope is that in 6 months they will enter the Swedish market as well.

“We are still an early stage startup, we just increased our production volume in a month and a half to a little over a tone, so it's about getting our volume to a point where we can service the demand. We also focus on our new 3 employees and use to the best of our ability what they bring to the table.”

Their capital was joined by Nordic Foodtech VC, with participation from EIFO and Rockstart, and to them this was detrimental, as they were looking for knowledge and network from the food industry.

“Cash is a priority, of course, because it allows us to build a team, build inventory and scale production but it's important for us to be surrounded by stakeholders that know what it takes to build a food company. Scaling can be slower than in other industries, so it was paramount for us to have people that understand.”

Regarding the production of the alternative powder, Christian says their product can be created in existing chocolate infrastructure so instead of having to invest in a lot of stainless steel, it can be produced anywhere in the world.

“Our product has a lot of fiber, similar protein levels to regular chocolate but we can produce a similar experience to a 65% chocolate with around half the added sugar. There are some flavour notes that we don’t have, but the other aspects can be created.”

They are currently producing 350 kg of the powder a month and, towards the end of year, they hope to produce over a ton.