Karuna Organic Bean-to-Bar Chocolate - South Tyrol, Italy

Armin Untersteiner and Katya Waldboth live in South Tyrol, a German-speaking region in Northern Italy.  When they founded Karuna Chocolate in 2018, they were the first in the region to product organic bean-to-bar chocolate.

In 2014, Katya had the opportunity to work in Southern India. While livingthere, they were intoduced to cacao farming. Then they returned home, they discoveed that no one was producing organic bean-to-bar chocolate. They decided to turn their new found passion into a family project, and Karuna Chocolate was born. 

Karuna organic bean-to-bar chocolate takes great care to use only ethically-grown, organic cacao beans from Latin America, Asia and Africa. They use fair-trade organic raw cane sugar from Brazil, and organic cocoa butter pressed from the finest cacaos: Arriba Nacional from Ecuador and Nacional from Peru. For their white "chocolate" vegan cocoa butter bars they use de-oiled almond flour from organically-grown Italian almonds - creating a creamy, rich flavor reminiscent of white chocolate. 

Karuna's passion for the cacao farmers and the environment shines through in their products - from the chocolate to the packaging. We feel fortunate that ChefShop is the first to bring Karuna Chocolate to the US market.

At the end of the week, after all the news has been digested, I look to ChefShop’s newsletter as my respite to life. On Sunday, I curl up in bed with my newsletter to forget about the weeks news, and think about romance. The romance of food!