A raw but sweet deal: New chocolate made with low temps, high flavor

Thursday, September 20, 2007

By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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BEWARE: Contents of this story are raw, dark and could lead to a powerful addiction.

That warning also could appear on the labels for the new chocolate in town, from Love Street Living Foods.

The unusual health-food company actually is on Carson Street, in a storefront in the Riverwalk Corporate Center. It was started earlier this year by two former wrestling teammates at Central Catholic High School: Aaron Bibro, who grew up in Dormont, and Jon-Michael Kerestes, who grew up in Mount Washington.

Mr. Bibro, 28, this spring finished graduate school at Villanova in public administration but wasn't ready to close himself off in a cubicle.

Mr. Kerestes, 30, had graduated in 2000 from the Air Force Academy with a human factors engineering degree and worked for the Air Force as a captain until 2005, but his interest in the raw foods diet -- eating foods that haven't been cooked and therefore retain enzymes and other nutrients -- led him down a different path.

When they reconnected earlier this year, Mr. Kerestes was making a raw, dark, organic and vegan chocolate he'd developed in Los Angeles and was selling it to a health-food store in New York City, where he lived.

They decided to partner on a business, based on the signature chocolate, but also selling a range of other raw foods. The name "Love Street" was made up by Mr. Kerestes, who commissioned New York artist Zihye Jeong to draw the logo.

Mr. Kerestes still follows the raw foods diet, but his chocolate isn't meant for just that niche. "The goal was to create something that would cross over" -- that is, something that could be considered good for you, but also could be considered just plain good.

As Mr. Bibro puts it, "I have no interest in eating raw food. I just like things that taste good."

The chocolate, made with a low-temperature (melted below 108 degrees) process, contains no processed sugar or hydrogenated fats or chemicals.

The ingredients list starts with organic raw cacao (70 percent), which they source from Ecuador (cacao typically is roasted for chocolate). The rest: Organic raw cacao butter, organic raw coconut oil, organic raw agave nectar (the sweetener), organic raw whole vanilla bean, organic raw maca (powdered South American root vegetable), organic raw cayenne (a subtle touch of it) and Himalayan crystal salt.

The result is not fattening empty calories, they say, but a "super food" that is good for you -- even better for you than conventional dark chocolate that has enjoyed so much good press, and popularity, of late.

"The enzyme content is higher, the antioxidant content is higher," says Mr. Kerestes, who has brought in a family friend, Taylor Call, a lifelong healthy food student who ran a couple of area vegetarian restaurants. She likens the recipe to how the Aztecs used to enjoy their chocolate, which was precious to them.

A taste test proves that Love Street chocolate is, at least, really good -- softer and less waxy than some dark chocolate, due to the low-temperature processing, but dense and powerful in flavor.

"Literally, this is my sales pitch: 'Taste this,'" says Mr. Bibro, who says just about every store owner who has tried it has agreed to carry it. So you can find it at the East End Food Co-Op in Point Breeze, McGinnis Sisters Special Foods in Monroeville and Brentwood, Sunnybridge Natural Foods in McMurray, Today's Market in Oakmont and other outlets. And any day now, it'll be available at East Liberty's Whole Foods Market, which makes Love Street a vendor eligible to be picked up by any of its stores in this region.

Mr. Kerestes and Mr. Bibro say that only a few other companies are making raw chocolate. So far the pair have been peddling rough-cut 1/4- and 1/2-ounce squares of theirs to stores for $1 or $2 in simple waxed-paper bags. They are upgrading the packaging -- for bars and possibly molded pieces -- but it all will be biodegradable. Online, their 1/2-ounce "truffles" sell for $1 a piece or $10 for a dozen.

At High Vibe Health and Healing, a raw foods superstore on Manhattan's Lower East Side, their 1.71- and 2.66-ounce bars retail for $7 and $9, a price that Love Street lovers happily pay, says the store's Judith Max. The store's Web site describes Love Street's as "best raw chocolate bar ever," and "the bomb," but it also carries some made by a local woman who teaches people to make it themselves. Ms. Max says, "Raw chocolate is taking off like I can't even believe."

Raw cacao continues to show up in more commercial products, such as the new Wildbar.

Love Street also looks to expand its line. Mr. Kerestes has whipped up indulgent vegan "ice cream" bonbons -- made not with dairy but with raw coconut cream and the chocolate -- that they plan to sell, along with a raw chocolate sauce.

They're selling the chocolate and a range of other raw foods, from purple corn to wild jungle peanuts, on their Web site, www.lovestreetlivingfoods.com. But they may open a retail store at their South Side digs.

Ms. Call is developing information to give to customers on benefits and uses of some of the raw products. "That's the key: To give people real healthy alternatives to what they're already using," she says.

Chocolate doesn't need a lot of explanation, even if it is raw and organic, and they want to keep pushing the envelope. As she says, "We have a lot of exciting ideas for chocolate that haven't been done before."