2023 Innovation Issue: Made to last

True Essence Foods launched in 2013 as the maker of SoChatti artisanal chocolate. But today, it’s growing its business by partnering with companies that share a belief that sustainability efforts can be good for both the environment and the bottom line.

Chocolate is still a True Essence staple. But in 2021, the company shifted its focus to work on industrial challenges in the food supply chain.

And it didn’t have to look for inspiration. True Essence is using the patented dehydration technology used for its SoChatti product to prolong the shelf life of fruits, vegetables, juices and spices.

More than a dozen companies are now applying the technology, known as flavor symmetry, to products, and True Essence founder Matt Rubin said financial savings are a major factor in attracting customers.

It costs less to remove moisture from a strawberry than to freeze it, Rubin said. The mode of transportation to market doesn’t require refrigeration, and the same goes for storage in a warehouse.

“We ask ourselves: ‘What is the direct water or energy impact? What is the indirect water or energy impact? And who pays for that?’” Rubin said. “That helps us understand the pain points of our customer as well as our overall sustainability benefit.”

The Indiana University alum said there are no negatives when costs are lowered, flavors are maintained and the ecosystem is unharmed.

“It’s a higher-quality product because we’re using this technology, and the technology is inherently sustainable,” he said. Customers “are motivated from a business perspective to do the right thing.”

Although True Essence declined to identify its non-Indiana clients, local customers are Greenleaf Juicing Co., Huse Culinary, Sun King Brewing, Tinker Coffee Co. and Helm Coffee Co.

Juice nectar

Greenleaf, which operates three brick-and-mortar locations in central Indiana and four in Oregon, joined forces with True Essence to create Superhuman Juice Nectar. The product is sold in 40-gram pouches that are filled with a blend of 10 fruits and vegetables condensed to the consistency of honey.

Laura Flynn, a Zionsville native who is president of Greenleaf, said her company wanted to enter the field of packaged consumer goods to expand its customer base as well as to limit a reliance on refrigerated trucks bringing fruits and vegetables to storefronts.

“You can now have your fresh organic juice 40,000 feet in the air on an airplane,” Flynn said. “You can have it in your car on the way to work without stopping at Greenleaf, and you can have it at your desk between meetings.”

True Essence made its own fruit nectar blends in seven flavors before the company connected with Greenleaf two years ago. Sold in 126-gram jars, the nectar varieties include peach, blueberry and apple.

Flynn saw True Essence’s nectar become juice when stirred into water, which prompted a question for Rubin.

“We said, ‘Hey, what about doing this with fruits and vegetables? Is there a world where you could take one of our juices and turn that into a nectar?’” Flynn said. “And although it had never been done, Matt, I think optimistically, said, ‘Yes. Let’s give it a go.’”

Greenleaf’s Superhuman Juice Nectar includes apple, pear, orange, cherry, pomegranate, beet, kale, spinach, carrot and strawberry. When combined with 10 ounces of water, the nectar becomes a juice made with one to two pounds of fruit and vegetables.

“They said, ‘We’re gonna give you the hardest formulation we can possibly come up with,’” Rubin said of Greenleaf. “And we said, ‘Challenge accepted.’”

At True Essence headquarters in the Circle City Industrial Complex, 1125 Brookside Ave., production of Greenleaf’s nectar is ramping up from 1,000 units each week to 50,000.

USDA-certified organic juice originating from Florida and Illinois is delivered to True Essence, where high-pressure pasteurization and the flavor-symmetry technology are used to create the gooey nectar concentrate.

“It’s never heated and never frozen,” Rubin said. “It’s fresh juice.”

Taste test

Flavor symmetry, the method Rubin describes as water removal and flavor preservation, is only half the story at True Essence.

A second patented process, known as flavor balancing, is designed to remove off-flavors in food and beverages.

Rubin said the company explores more than 8,000 process conditions when refining the taste of products such as St. Elmo Steak House spirits sold by Huse Culinary and the coffee sold by Tinker and Helm.

Sun King, known for its beer and spirits, is working with True Essence on a cannabinoid-based seltzer.

“Cannabinoids can have a bitter and sort of a ‘skunky’ characteristic,” said Dave Colt, a co-owner and founder of the brewery.

Presently known as Sun King D8 Seltzer, a reference to the Delta-8 derivative from hemp, the product is available in the company’s tap rooms but is not yet sold in stores.

In 2018, Indiana legalized the sale of cannabidiol, also known as CBD, a substance derived from the cannabis sativa plant.

Cannabidiols sold and purchased in Indiana must contain less than 0.3% of THC—the psychoactive agent that causes intoxication.

Colt described the balancing of flavors in the 21-and-older D8 Seltzer as being “noninvasive.”

“The taste is very neutral,” Colt said. “Which is great, because when you add flavorings on top of it, you have a cleaner palate to work with.”

Money matters

Sean O’Keefe, a food science and technology professor at Virginia Tech University, said True Essence wouldn’t be finding traction if it hurt a customer’s business model.

“If you talk to a food company and say, ‘Oh, this is only going to increase the cost per package by one penny,’ they will chase you out of the room with a broom,” O’Keefe said. “That’s a huge amount of money for a company that manufactures 10 million products a week.”

Regarding the prospects of Greenleaf’s nectar product, O’Keefe said modern consumers will pay for high quality.

“The two drivers are going to be quality and cost,” he said. “If it’s a little bit more expensive but a lot better, it’s going to be OK. If it’s way more expensive and a little better, it’s probably not.”

Greenleaf introduced its nectar with a price of $5 per pouch or $50 for a box of 10.

“Our hope is that we can bring those costs down as we scale production,” Flynn said.

Meanwhile, she noted, Greenleaf charges nearly $9 for a fresh juice at its stores. In New York and Los Angeles, people pay up to $15 for fresh juice, she said.

“Depending on who the market is or who you’re talking to, some people might actually think [Superhuman Juice Nectar] is priced effectively and cheaply for them,” Flynn said.

Rubin said True Essence is an investor-backed company. According to the recently published Innovative Agbioscience in Indiana report, True Essence received more than $10 million in investment capital from 2018 to 2021.

“We are proud to have the level of support that we’ve received from the community and from our investors,” Rubin said. “As we continue to grow, it will be an important part of what we’re doing.”

Going the distance

When True Essence devised its fruit nectar blends, Rubin researched peach farms and gained insight about food waste.

“If they have fruit that is too ripe on the tree, and it won’t last eight days to get to market, they won’t even pick it,” he said.

Rubin’s company devoted years to studying a “scorecard of sustainability” in the categories of food loss, water, energy and waste management.

It was frustrating, he said, to see sustainability efforts by others improve the situation in one category but worsen it in another.

Flynn said Greenleaf aspires to be a “virtual juice bar” in the future, with perhaps 80% of business generated by nectars and future products such as a granola bar.

She said plastic pollution is a disheartening problem.

“The juice industry is completely overwhelmed with plastic,” Flynn said. “You go to a grocery store, and you pick up a fresh juice or a bottle of juice—it’s all single-use plastic. Sustainability was another area where we aligned with True Essence.”

Greenleaf received a glimpse of its future, Flynn said, when the company sent 500 nectar pouches to National Guard soldiers in Kosovo.

“We were able to simply put it in a box and ship it,” Flynn said. “It arrived in perfect form.”

Nectar could be helpful at disaster sites, in countries facing hunger crises and domestic food deserts, she said.

The idea of the Kosovo delivery originated with a soldier’s mother, Flynn said.

“They heard about our product,” she said, “and they thought, ‘Wow. I know what my son eats, and I know what he and his fellow soldiers have access to. I bet it would be great for them to have some fresh fruits and vegetables.’”•

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