Cover-Story Lovechock
Cover-Story Lovechock Chocolate with love – wrapped in Natureflex With her presentation at bio!PAC in Amsterdam on the 12 th of May, Laura de Nooijer impressed many of the attendees. That’s why we share her story with our readers here. Lovechock is born out of Love. Love for excellent raw chocolate that opens the heart and uplifts the soul. As the Maya’s already knew, chocolate is something very sacred and Lovechock wants to bring people back to this essence. Lovechock as a brand was started by Laura de Nooijer in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 2008. At that time she had her first mind-altering sacred medicine drink in a ritual and became very inspired by the wisdom of nature. She then decided that her study Psychology was quite boring compared to all the bright visuals released by those magic plants. She quitted her studies and started on a shamanic path in Brazil involving sacred medicine plants. She met David Wolfe, a USA raw food expert and was impressed by his healthy, shiny aura. From him she learned about the raw cacao bean. One can actually eat the raw cacao bean, because it is full of antioxidants and lovechemicals, goodies that make you feel happy and loving. The antioxidants in chocolate widen the blood vessels and improve overall cardio vascular function. Together with some friends Laura started the Chocolateclub, monthly dance parties all involving the intake of raw chocolate smoothies, consisting of raw cacao beans, bananas, coconut oil and other superfoods. Those parties were full of excitement, laughter and joy. Nevertheless Laura was missing the real bite of a crisp chocolate bar, so she started to order raw chocolate bars from the USA. Those bars were expensive, so she decided to make them herself. She saw her chocolate make so many people happy with Laura de Nooijer: “Our product has so many great angles to shed light on, but our main proposition is love. This is great as it is inherent to the product.” a big smile and seized the opportunity to write a business plan. In September 2009 the launch of the first Lovechock bars were a fact. Every day she was in the kitchen and the maximum of bars she could produce was 1000 a day. After 1.5 years the small bakery kitchen capacity became too small and the whole enterprise moved to a social working place, where the bars were produced from that moment on. The growth of this business was a wobbly road, as chocolate making is a real art and cacao one of the most complex food commodities on the planet to work with. More and more people got involved and sales went up. Turnover doubled every year and Lovechock rapidly expanded into Germany, Austria and Switzerland. What is the success behind Lovechock ? Mainly it is the chocolate itself which is made of high quality Arriba Nacional cacao, high quality coconut blossom sugar and other superfoods. The bars of Lovechock are always full of whole pieces of fruit and nuts, which deliver the extra chew and make it unique. Being the first serious raw chocolate company in the Netherlands, Lovechock seized the opportunity to be the first mover in lots of places. The chocolate is wrapped in 100 % renewable and compostable Natureflex film 12 bioplastics MAGAZINE [03/15] Vol. 10
Cover-Story Besides the great chocolate it’s the great packaging that gives the real kick to the product. Working closely together with Prouddesign an identity and packaging for a chocolate was created that works. And one that is distinctive from the luxury brands that are out there. The concept is “Raw from the outside and Wow from the inside”. So this means an honest, eco, natural look on the outside and a world of happiness and joy on the inside (full color print on the inside of the wrapper). This is also the actual experience of raw chocolate. It is less processed chocolate, therefore a little more rough, gritty and chewy to eat, but once you eat it, a rich palette of fine flavors unfolds plus the celebrative effect of the lovechemicals (tryptophan, dopamine, PEA). What is the story behind the design ? Lovechock started with the chocolate covered in aluminum foil packed in a carton wrapper, held together by plastic, rubber look-a-like, bands. — handwrapped. Eventually the detrimental effects of aluminum on the environment and even the migration of aluminum to the chocolate became clear. Also the aluminum was looking luxurious, but a bit kitschy as well. So Lovechock looked into bioplastics and came across Innovia Films and their home compostable foil Natureflex. It is made from sustainably planted eucalyptus wood. At first a bit hesitating they were afraid that the permeability would age the chocolate more quickly, but there was already another chocolate brand that used this foil successfully. At the same time the plastic bands were replaced by a little tab on the wrapper that makes the wrapper reclosable. The result proved to be a good choice; the chocolate looks very tasty in the transparent packaging and Lovechock posted the whole eco make-over on social media. Another good news was that Innovia is still working to reduce the carbon footprint of the foil, by optimizing their production efficiency. Laura is very happy not to use fossil sources, but sustainably planted eucalyptus trees. Besides the foil, Lovechock created the wrapper in a way to make sure all the carton is PEFC certified, printed with organic ink. Also the labels (From the only certified company in Holland Autajon) are completely biodegradable as even the pigments in the ink are nonfossil fuel based. In terms of sustainability overall Lovechock is on their way but there is always things to improve. Of course is happy about the fact that by not using harmful pesticides they also not further damage the earth. They started as an organic company as a start so that is nice as they add more high quality chocolate choice in the organic store. “It is great that we pursue sustainable packaging but in total we still leave a carbon footprint on the earth”, says Laura da Nooijer, “we looked at different angles of sustainability and decided to focus first on social responsibility the coming years and focus then more on our planetary responsibility.” And she adds: “Our product has so many great angles to shed light on, but our main proposition is love. This is great as it is inherent to the product.” MT Inside view of the paper wrapper bioplastics MAGAZINE [03/15] Vol. 10 13
