Rau Chocolate is a cold-pressed cacao beverage that is winning both customers and industry accolades. Earlier this month, the three-year-old San Diego startup won the “New Beverage Award” at BevNET Live in New York, a major event in the beverage industry. “Rau took the decision out of the judges’ hands by earning the majority of the audience vote,” wrote a BevNET correspondent. Times of San Diego spoke with co-founder Daren Myers about his company and its popular new drink.
Why did you start Rau Chocolate?
As roommates fresh out of college, Brian and I founded Rau Chocolate out of our beach apartment, inspired by the idea to reshape the way we all experience life’s guilty pleasure…chocolate. We would spend morning after morning infusing the world’s most nutrient-rich superfood (raw heirloom cacao beans) with the purest organic spices mother nature has to offer, to create an all-around wild-and-bold chocolate concoction that kept us revitalized and feeling great all day long. This was our own little secret recipe.
Most people think of chocolate as a guilty pleasure, but you’ve made it healthy. How did you do that?
All chocolate today is processed with heat and pumped with refined sugars, dairy, preservatives and artificial ingredients. Instead of heat processing our chocolate beans, we cold press them. We have also eliminated all the refined sugars, dairy, preservatives and artificial ingredients…giving us chocolate in its nutrient-dense superfood state.
Where can San Diegans purchase bottles of Rau?
It’s available currently at Whole Foods, Jimbo’s, FIT Athletic, Sol Cal and Seaside Market. Our website is constantly being updated as we add new outlets.
What flavors are available?
Rau comes in five flavors at the moment, including the original, mint, coconut, mocha and Mayan spice.
Now that the business is growing in San Diego, do you have plans for national expansion?
Our plan at the moment is to continue our growth in California, and then look to other markets around the country to expand. Our goal is to create the first national cold-pressed chocolate beverage company.
Times of San Diego, a startup itself, regularly writes about startups in technology, biotech and other sectors of local business. If you are a startup in the San Diego area and want to tell your story, please contact news@timesofsandiego.com.
