Tag Archives: Vegan

Food & Drink, Food and Drink, News

Four in A Row For HAPPi in Top Food Awards

Plant-based oat mi!k chocolate brand, HAPPi, is celebrating after winning four top awards in this year’s hugely competitive Great Taste Awards.

Launched earlier this year as a delicious, vegan alternative to milk chocolate, HAPPi picked up four coveted gold awards for all four of its main flavours: Plain M!lk, Orange, Salted Caramel and Cacao Nibs Crunch and was the only oat milk chocolate brand in the competition. 

“This is a fantastic achievement for HAPPi, which we only launched at the start of 2021,” says Gavin Cox. “When it comes to creating plant-based alternatives, taste is the absolute most important thing so to pick up these awards for flavour alone is a huge pat on the back for the whole team.”

“The flexitarian chocolate market is becoming increasingly competitive so awards like these will really help us stand out from the crowd,” adds Gavin.

The Great Taste Awards is the world’s largest and most trusted food and drink awards, with a panel of expert judges that include chefs, buyers, food writers and retailers. All products are blind tasted and marked accordingly, meaning that the awards are also a positive way to receive honest, impartial feedback on products from the best figures in the food and drink industry.

During vigorous taste testing, the judges described HAPPi as “A very well made chocolate bar. The texture was creamy and velvety, and the cacao content was well balanced with the sweetness,” adding, “The flavour profile is excellent: the chocolate is rich with fruity dark notes with the well judged salted caramel bringing a very well judged further dimension to this tasty, indulgent chocolate bar.”

HAPPi produces a range of oat mi!k chocolate products including its core range of bars, HAPPi nibbles, buttons, HAPPi Oat Drinks and also new this month its advent calendar and selection box. For more information on HAPPi visit www.happifreefrom.com

THE HAPPI FACTS 

  • Happi Free From produces a range of oat milk chocolate bars in six flavours, as well as oat milk chocolate buttons and chocolate Nibbles.
  • Happi Oat Drinks are its newest launch.
  • Happi uses fully sustainable packaging. All Happi packaging is from sustainable sources and is either fully recyclable or compostable.
  • Happi buys its cacao directly from farmers and growers with a full ‘farm-to-bar’ supply chain. This means they know who grows its chocolate and what they get paid. 
  • Happi gives 1% of our annual net sales revenues to youth projects and mental health organisations. 
Science

New Vegan smart-test allows for mildness testing without using animals

A new vegan smart-test allows beauty companies to avoid animal testing and prove product mildness by testing on human cells grown in a lab.

91% of consumers report uncomfortable symptoms on their skin including skin tightness, dryness, itching, burning and redness with over a third of consumers avoiding daily life skin care products due to skin reactions.

Beauty and cosmetic companies are under increasing pressure to produce clean beauty products that can boost wellbeing but also detect subtle differences in mildness on the skin. Vegan testing lab XCellR8 has unveiled a ground-breaking new test for more accurately predicting mildness to skin – that is entirely free from animal-products.

The new test uses human skin cells grown in the lab to detect subtle differences in even the mildest of products or ingredients, providing a classification of Non-Irritant, Very Mild, Moderate to Mild, Moderate or Strong/Severe.

In a two-year project, the new mildness test was validated against human volunteer trials with the lab-based data accurately predicting the rank order of human clinical scores, finally allowing brands to determine ‘how gentle is gentle.’ Producing results in as little as six – eight weeks, the XtraMild Test will enable companies to use credible scientific data to support their mildness claims.

The research also unveiled:

· Nurses know best. XCellR8 grows skin in their labs for testing. Whilst the skin grown in the lab was just as effective at predicting mildness as the human volunteer trials, the researchers discovered that specially trained nurses were shown to measure skin irritation more accurately than equipment that measures the redness and temperature of the skin on the volunteers.

· Sustainability does not need to be expensive. Some of the best selling soaps proved more mild than equivalent market leading facial washes.

· Scientific claims can not tell the whole story. One media favourite claims the low pH level of its facial bar contributes to its mildness. And whilst it was classified as moderately mild, 6 out of the 10 soaps tested were milder.

The test is commonly used to assess new baby formulations such as shampoos, foam baths and body washes, providing critical insights into the mildness of the product and comparisons with leading brands. It is highly relevant for a wide variety of other formulation types including facial soaps, cleansers and other skincare items. The ET50 test can also be applied to cosmetic ingredients, such as assessment of the mildness of novel “mild” surfactants against classic surfactants, replacing the traditional tests which often lack relevance and the required level of sensitivity.

Dr Carol Treasure, CEO and Founder of XCellR8 commented on the latest innovation to come from the company:

“Our company ethos to provide world-leading science with world-leading ethics really shone through with this project.

“Existing tests for mildness aren’t accurate as they were designed for irritant chemicals rather than today’s gentle cosmetic ingredients, and were benchmarked against unreliable animal data. In developing a new more sensitive test, we have been able to prove that in vitro test results are as predictive as human volunteer trials as part of the project design. We no longer need to be dependent on out of date animal data as new in vitro techniques provide such a good model of real-life exposure.

“The research project also allowed us to look at the differences in facial cleansers and soaps in the current market place – and highlighted the mildness of many soaps, ultimately allowing the consumer to choose a product that is as mild to their skin as a facial wash whilst being more sustainably packaged.

“The beauty of XtraMild is that it can bring together R&D and marketing, as formulators can now help marketing teams provide solid evidence for their mildness claims.”

XCellR8 is an exclusively vegan laboratory and provides entirely animal-free safety and efficacy tests to the cosmetics, personal care and chemical industries. Already trusted by leading cosmetic and chemical companies around the world, the company does not use serum, tissues or antibodies extracted from animals.