Blue Stripes, a marketer of food and drinks made from the “whole” cacao fruit, has secured $20m in a Series B funding round.
The US-based business has again attracted investment from chocolate giant Hershey, which invested in the company five years ago.
Blue Stripes, set up in 2018, offers a range of products made from the cacao shell, fruit and bean, ingredients that are often discarded in the production of chocolate. Its product range includes cacao water, chocolate bars and granola.
In a statement, Blue Stripes said it would use the fresh investment to fund its product development, increase distribution and support its marketing efforts.
Just Food has asked Blue Stripes for more details on its plans and has contacted Hershey for comment on its latest investment in the business.
VC fund Zintinus and US grocer Whole Foods Market also took part in the Series B round. Whole Foods – and its parent company Amazon – are among the stockists of Blue Stripes’ products.
Blue Stripes, meanwhile, has named celebrity chef Nick DiGiovanni as a brand ambassador.
DiGiovanni, with over 33 million followers across social-media platforms, will help raise consumer awareness about the uses of cacao fruit's uses and its purported nutritional benefits.
Blue Stripes founder Oded Brenner said: “For the last two decades of my career I focused on showing people the whimsical and romantic side of chocolate.
“In this next chapter, I am on a mission to change what happens behind the scenes of the cacao industry – reducing the negative cacao industry impact on the environment, improving the economic value cacao farmers receive for their work, and sharing the incredible functional benefits that the cacao superfruit has with the world.”
