Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
In 2019 Rimi moved away from her original offering and was focussing her efforts on a more luxurious product – chocolate. And vegan chocolate at that. We have a mini kitchen in our offices in Altrincham and we do constant recipe development. First and foremost, it’s always about taste. To get the creamy, luxuriant taste and feel of milk chocolate, without the milk, we use nut butters – cashew nut, hazelnut, etc. We also really carefully source the cocoa that we use.’ With a touch of cinnamon and crumbly biscuit texture, it took us a minute or two to figure out what the caramelised biscuit wafer bar reminded us of. If you love Lotus Biscoff, you will love these.
When it comes to variety, there’s a choice of chocolate bars, cream wafer bars, nutty chocolate balls and peanut butter cups. As we’ve mentioned, they do look very similar to a variety of already popular chocolate treats. And, if our taste buds (and memory, as we haven’t eaten milk chocolate in a while) aren’t deceiving us, they taste quite similar too. Wholefoods in London sold nearly 12,000 units in the first week, which is huge. We decided at that moment just to focus on chocolate. We discontinued our other lines and decided just to do one thing, and do it really well.’ The M:lk® Choc Cre&m® Wafer Bar is made of two crispy vegan wafers filled with a layer of fluffy vegan hazelnut cream topped with our legendary chocolate. Our White Choc Cre&m® Wafer Bar is a crunchy vegan wafer loaded with a layer of hazelnut & almond cre&m® smothered in our epic vegan white chocolate and finished with a drizzle of our iconic m:lk® chocolate. With only vegan milk chocolate and white chocolate within its range, LoveRaw uses mainly rice and oat powder to create that creaminess associated with milk chocolate, which does mean this isn’t the place to find deep, rich dark chocolate, should this be your preferred palate-pleaser.I was thinking about all those 18-hour days I had spent making the bars and making so many sacrifices for the business and it just didn’t feel right, intuitively, to give away that percentage, even though probably we did need investment at that point.’ Deborah Meaden offered to invest, but Rimi felt that the percentage of her business that Deborah wanted in return was simply too high.
Hazelnut and Almond filling (48%) [sugar, hazelnuts (20%), almonds (15%) rice syrup, cocoa liquor, sunflower oil, emulsifier: sunflower lecithin), sugar, vegetable fat (coconut, cocoa butter), dried glucose syrup, emulsifier ( soya lecithin, sunflower lecithin), wheat flour, defatted cocoa powder, corn starch, potato starch, wheat fibre, salt, raising agent: sodium bicarbonate, sunflower oil, natural vanilla flavouring. We went through quite a product evolution. We started with cold pressed raw bars, which in 2013 was really innovative, but the barriers to entry were too low and competitors started to enter the market. I felt that there was a real gap in the market for something luxurious, indulgent – and still vegan. We wanted to create a chocolate that was decadently enjoyable, where you felt like you were eating something naughty, and yet was vegan.I had never had any plans, or even thought, about upscaling,’ she says. ‘I really enjoyed actually meeting the people buying my product, and sharing the message myself. Then one day a friend asked: who would be your absolute ideal retailer? My answer was immediate – WholeFoods, in London. They represent everything that we’re about and we share their ethics.’ Caramel Flavour Filling (47,5%) (Sugar, Almond, Vegetable Fat: Sunflower, Caramelised Sugar, Cocoa Liquor, Dried Glucose Syrup, Emulsifier: Sunflower Lecithin, Natural Flavouring), Sugar, Vegetable Fat (Coconut Oil, Cocoa Butter, Sunflower Oil), Dried Glucose Syrup, Wheat Flour, Corn Starch, Caramelised Sugar, Defatted Cocoa Powder, Cocoa Liquor, Emulsifier (Sunflower Lecithin, Soya Lecithin), Potato Starch, Wheat Fibre, Salt, Natural Vanilla Flavouring, Colouring (Carrot Concentrate), Raising Agent: Sodium Bicarbonate. Rimi laughs, ‘Healthy is such a subjective word. All we do is claim vegan, we don’t claim healthy. We try not to be preachy; we just advocate what we do and show how you can still treat yourself within a vegan lifestyle.’ The White Choc Cre&m® Wafer Bar is a crunchy vegan wafer loaded with a layer of hazelnut & almond cre&m® smothered in our epic vegan white chocolate and finished with a drizzle of our iconic M:lk® chocolate. Our Salted Caramel Cre&m® Wafer is a delicious crisp wafer with a layer of salted caramel cre&m® filling, covered in a caramel coating. I went immediately to 18-hour days,’ she says. ‘It was crazy; I had my mum join me, and my in-laws, we had pallets of ingredients being delivered outside the house – the neighbours must have wondered what on earth we were doing.’
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