Goodio to Bring Dairy-Free Oat Chocolate to U.S.

The oat milk craze that is sweeping coffee shops across America is now seeping into a new category: chocolate.

Finland-based premium chocolate maker Goodio will be bringing its newest innovation, ChocOats, to the U.S. this summer. ChocOats is an organic, dairy-free, snack-size chocolate bar that gets its creaminess from ground gluten-free oats. The patent-pending technology using oats makes the bars have 50 percent less sugar than traditional milk chocolate brands.

“We wanted to do something totally different. No one else is using oats as opposed to dairy or some other milk alternative so we gave it a shot and we were quite frankly surprised that it worked so well and how soft and easily accessible the taste is,” COO Jussi Salonen told NOSH. “Oats are very neutral, which is why it makes for a great ingredient.”

ChocOats officially launched in Scandinavia in May, and is rolling out to the United Kingdom and Germany over the next month before coming to the U.S. in July. Goodio’s original, larger-sized line of premium chocolate is currently sold within the U.S. in just under 1,000 locations with retailers such as Whole Foods Market, William Sonoma, Anthropologie, Amazon and Thrive Market. ChocOats will debut in four flavors — original blond, wild blueberry, sweet licorice and cool mint — with “many of those current retailers.”

With the arrival of ChocOats, Salonen said he thinks this will make the premium brand more accessible in the U.S. to a new consumer type and channel: conventional. The bars are packaged in a geometric-patterned flow pack — a less expensive and familiar packaging format in the U.S. thanks to candy giants like Snickers and Hershey’s — and retails for $2.49 – 2.99 compared to the $5.99 – $6.99 range of its original line. The hope, Salonen said, is to get more consumers to try the brand.

“We want to bring a better option to everybody, not just your chocoholics and specialty consumers,” Salonen said. “If it is more affordable, then it is, according to our mission, making a positive change with the world’s best chocolate. But if it is not approachable to everybody, then it is not accomplishing that mission.”

Salonen explained that he’s noticed increased retailer interest within the U.S. compared to Europe due to what he sees as a lack of high-end, snack-size bars in this market. The excitement could also be related to the U.S.’s current infatuation with oat milk, which has been deemed by some as “the new almond milk.”

Aside from accessibility, Salonen said the use of oats as ingredients was also a play at sustainability; unlike almonds or coconuts, there is a plethora of oats grown in the northern U.S. and Canada. To continue to act on this mission, Salonen noted that the company plans to open its first manufacturing facility within the U.S. sometime in the future. The U.S. has become the company’s largest export market, and is expected to surpass the brand’s domestic market of Finland before the end of the year, according to the company.