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Blog

Let's Talk About Sugar & Where it Comes From

We are very excited to be launching our new 45g pink chocolate bar, BERRY WILD! This product is made from a white chocolate base blended with a tangy strawberry/Davidson plum combo, giving the bar it’s beautiful vibrant, pink colour that we hope you will love.

If you’ve already tried this bar, you might have noticed an ingredient that you don’t usually see in Loving Earth products – raw organic cane sugar. We wanted to give you an insight into our thinking behind this choice of sugar, as it’s a slight shift in approach for us.

We typically use organic coconut sugar as our sweetener of choice, which we have sourced from small village producers in Southeast Asia since the early days of the company. One of our founding mandates is to support climate positive farming and we’re big advocates for Regenerative agriculture. The regenerative nature of coconut sugar farming is a big tick for us.

When you source sugar from small growers there are pros and cons to balance out. You’re supporting climate positive farming which is a plus. At the same time, you get really wide fluctuations in the colour and texture of the product you receive. As you may know, coconut sugar has a natural variation in colour from very light to very dark brown. This is fine for our darker chocolates as the look of the bar isn’t affected. Creating our white or pink chocolate bars though is a whole other story. For these we need the lightest coconut sugar possible and, given the nature of coconut sugar production in villages, it’s hard to get a dependable colour for these paler bars. Unfortunately, this makes a consistent white (or pink) chocolate is impossible for us to produce. Our commitment to providing a reliable product for our customers, as well as food waste minimisation, are both threatened by the variability of this raw ingredient.

After looking at this from every angle, we are happy to report that we will be including raw, organic Australian sugar in our lighter chocolate products. With less variation in colour and texture this ensures a consistent product which will meet our customers’ needs and minimise food waste. Last but by no means least, we will also be supporting organic farming in our own backyard.

We are as committed as ever to sourcing ingredients from indigenous growers around the world. Now though, we are including our own home soil in a meaningful way. Did you know that runoff of nitrogen fertilizer from sugarcane crops is a major threat to Great Barrier Reef health? Sourcing organic cane sugar from Qld farmers is a small first step in supporting more holistic farming methods. To our delight, there are also Australian farmers experimenting with something dear to our own hearts, Regenerative agriculture. These pioneers in the Australian farming space are seeing great results in soil health and crops. Our support encourages them to keep looking for ways to future proof their crops, in the knowledge that there is a market for them. We have also registered our interest in regenerative sugar with the Bundaberg Sugar company, who are already looking at ways to make this a part of their offering in the future.

Our goal is to start with Organic and move to Regenerative Australian sugar as soon as it’s available. Advocating for this kind of crop is part of the regenerative journey that we are on. Stay tuned for the next part of the story as it unfolds.

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