Move Over, Chocolate

 What’s your story?

Max: I’m originally from Los Angeles and moved to New York after university to cook in fine dining restaurants. I remember stumbling across Relae [the book by Danish chef Christian Puglisi, featuring recipes from his restaurant of the same name], and it was the first time I had seen any cooking from Scandinavia. I was so curious that I decided to spend a month in Copenhagen, working as a stagiaire at the restaurant Amass.

In my first week, I got a job offer and I worked my way through the kitchen, ultimately becoming head chef and head of R&D. I was used to kitchens where you would slice out the brightest green sliver of an avocado and discard the rest – but at Amass we didn’t throw away vegetable skins. We kept citrus peels. Coffee grounds were not a waste product. It was a re-education in using the whole ingredient. With Endless Food Co., we made the same journey with chocolate.

Chris: Repurposing waste products into something that created value, flavour, and experience gave us the gratifying feeling of taking practical environmental action. We saw that it resonated with people outside of the walls of Amass. So, we asked, why don’t we do this on a bigger scale, create more impact, and reach more people?

Tell us about a moment on your journey that stands out in your memory.

Chris: I distinctly remember the first time somebody said, OK, we’ll buy it from you for the price that you’ve asked. Up until then, we had done a lot of taste tests with people and groups, but packing something and delivering it to the back door of a restaurant and then letting it go – that felt wild.

What’s the impact you hope to make?

Chris: The vanguard of gastronomy can be an echo chamber. It talks to itself a lot and is marketed toward people with a high disposable income. We want to reach the mainstream with something tasty, interesting, and good for the earth – but that is not wildly expensive and does not necessarily have to tell a climate story. We always say we want to coat every Mars bar. It would be cool to create something that everyone can relate to.

Max: We’re not biochemists, we’re not Harvard MBAs, we’re people from the hospitality industry, and we’re really good at creating flavour. This company is driven by deliciousness, offers a more sustainable product on a large scale, and happens to use upcycled ingredients. If that can make a small step in the right direction for the food system, that would be an enormous win.

Whose stories have inspired you?

Chris: I have to mention Matt Orlando, the chef-owner of Amass. Before we partnered with him on Endless Food Co., Max and I worked for him for a long time – in an industry with high employee turnover – because his proposal was different. It had purpose and was easy to get behind. Besides him, a software professional who we did sessions with early on was a big help in shaping THIC. Coming from a completely different industry, he presented a radically different approach to running a business and focusing your energy.

How would you like your story to change the world?

Max: We are not looking down from a high throne in gastronomy or climate action, telling people to eat differently. We see a growing problem in the food system, and we want to work with existing chocolate companies to ensure the food experience we grew up with is still afforded to future generations. If we do nothing, the chocolate supply chain will become an even bigger problem. We also hope to show that waste can be an opportunity to build something new, fun and delicious.