An update on our chocolates

There's a piece in Mint this week  about a show cause notice we received on the "No Added Sugar" claim on our chocolates. We want to share what's going on.

What’s changing?
Our dark chocolate packs will now say "Sweetened with Dates" instead of "No Added Sugar."

What’s not changing?
The chocolate. No change. All ingredients stay as is. Still 71% cocoa and 29% dates. Nothing else. No refined sugar. Ever.

What’s the disagreement about?
Whether dates, used the way we use them as date powder, count as "added sugar" or natural fruit sugar.

How do we use dates?
There are two ways to turn dates into a powder you can put into smooth chocolate.
The first is to boil them down, make a syrup, and extract the sugars. If you do this, the fibre and nutrients are gone, and what's left behaves like sugar. This is not what we use.
The second is to chop whole dates, dehydrate them, and grind them into a powder. Nothing is extracted. A lot of the fibre and micronutrients stay. We do this. We believe date powder made this way doesn’t behave like ‘added sugar’ in your body.

Why do we believe it isn't added sugar?
We had our date powder tested. Its Glycemic Index (a measure of how fast a particular food raises blood sugar levels) is 43, which is close to boiled carrots (GI 39) and apples (GI 42). Refined sugar is GI 63.
The fibre changes how the body processes it. The source matters.

So why the change on pack?
We’re the pioneers of date-sweetened chocolate in India. So it’s on us to make the case that our date powder doesn't behave like added sugar. And we’re on it. We've submitted our tests and global precedents and are in active conversation with the relevant authorities. As you’d imagine, this process takes time.
In the meantime, they've asked us to say "Sweetened with Dates," and we've complied.

Why did we receive a notice?
We were asked to make this change earlier than we did, and we missed that deadline. That's why we received the notice. The change is now done across all packs.
That's the whole truth. We'll keep you posted as things develop.