Its founder, Frédéric Marr, is now adopting an offbeat tone to answer this question, with the inscription “This is not chocolate” affixed to the packaging of his new range entitled ‘Raw cocoa + fruit’.
To fully understand the DNA of this new product launched last April, let us take a closer look at chocolate.
A story of cocoa
Invented by Europeans in the 19th century, chewable chocolate is a product made from the roasting and hot grinding of cocoa beans with added sugar.
Raw cocoa is obtained by fermenting handpicked cocoa beans, and then slowly cold crushed in stone grindstones.
Although this is not his first attempt in raw cocoa, Frédéric Marr has reached today the pinnacle of nutritional excellence.
His passion for raw cocoa stemmed from tasting cocoa beans during a trip to the Amazon in 2005, as well as excellent raw cocoa discovered in Brooklyn that same year. Enthusiastic about these culinary discoveries, he decided to start making raw cocoa on his return to France. For fifteen years, he has been working with this raw material and has now become an expert.
A nutritional treasure
It must be said that raw cocoa is flawless, both nutritionally and in taste. Without roasting or cooking, most of the nutrients contained in cocoa are effectively preserved. For example, raw cocoa contains three times more antioxidants than chocolate. Once in the mouth, all the flavours of cocoa, usually masked by those more pronounced from roasting, are finally revealed to the delight of our taste buds!
It is this purity that Frédéric Marr has chosen to explore. At Rrraw Cacao Factory, the selected cocoa beans are not roasted, which lends exceptional quality to the finished products.
This excellence has not gone unnoticed by several Michelin-starred chefs of the Culinary College of France, of which Rrraw has been a ‘quality artisan producer’ since 2017.
The ‘Classic’ range
Tablets, truffles, raw cocoa beans, spreads and ‘Crunchy’ … raw cocoa is presented in all its forms for the ‘Classic range.
This is an original range – organic, gluten and dairy free – and includes many vegan products. No more butter, eggs, and milk: they are replaced by crushed oilseeds and cold-pressed olive oil, rich in fibre and precious polyunsaturated fatty acids.
On the sugar side, Frédéric Marr is careful by adding only natural sugars to his raw cocoa preparations.
The ‘Raw cocoa + fruit’ range
Frédéric Marr did not stop there. After three years of research and development, the ‘Raw cocoa + fruit’ range was born, in a period of confinement.
This new range is 100% vegetable-based (vegan), organic and gluten-free. On the back of the bars, the list of ingredients is succinct. Above all, it no longer mentions any other form of sugar other than that naturally present in the fruits, which completes the removal of chocolate for good.
Insatiable epicurean Frédéric Marr has now added this plant-based range of products to round off his already wholesome collection.
And there is something for everyone! The three flavors available allow everyone to find a combination of fruit/raw cocoa capable of delighting their palate: the date (natural fragrance) to feel the subtleties of raw cocoa in complete neutrality; the banana to sweeten it slightly; and pineapple, whose acidity blends wonderfully with that of raw cocoa.
These three flavours are also available in the form of coated raw cocoa beans or even truffles.
In the future, other fruits could be added to expand the range. While there is no shortage of ideas, the challenge for Frédéric Marr is to succeed in creating quality fruit chains in sufficient quantities.
One thing is certain: to try the ‘Raw cocoa + fruit’ range is to adopt it! So, go to the Rrraw Cacao Factory workshop-boutique to see for yourself.
Writer: Madeleine Besancenot
Translated by Malvika Kathpal
