Norti pushes to expand probiotic chocolate sales across the US

20-Aug-2019

There are three versions of the chocolate bar; original, low-carb and keto-friendly, and bitesize

Photo as seen on company website. Credit Laine Rudolfa

Australian Norti Nutrition has launched its good-for-you, probiotic chocolate bars in the US. Now the company is attempting to reach further across the country and has made its three flagship products on Pronutritionzone.com.

Norti says its chocolate has all the flavour of a regular chocolate bar, but with the health benefits of a probiotic supplement.

Pronutritionzone.com offers a host of speciality wellness products, as well as hard to find treats, with the goal of making good food accessible across a wide demographic, anywhere in the US. Norti's partnership with the website will allow them to reach a larger US audience, both within the niche market of health and wellness, and the all-encompassing market of people who love chocolate.

The chocolate bars have been available for purchase in the US for only a few months, and include three flagship products:

The original Norti Performance Bar; 1.6 oz of chocolate, fortified with nine grams of hemp protein, plus pre and probiotics.
The Norti Low Carb Bar, all the pre and probiotic nutrition of the Performance Bar, but in a low-carb package.
Norti Monster Bites, individually wrapped squares of chocolate, with pre and probiotics, and digestive enzymes, all in a kid-friendly size.

Norti spokesperson, Greg Lane, said the most important factor in the taste. "We want to make chocolate that aids digestion, and helps propagate healthy gut bacteria - but we still want it to taste like a bar of chocolate!" says Lane.

Norti's chocolate is for everyone, including people who may have a difficult time finding delicious snack food because of dietary restrictions and food allergies. All of Norti's products are not only gluten-free and vegan with no sugar added, but also free from nuts and aspartame.

Choose wisely

Instead, as a sweetener, Norti uses monk fruit juice, and non-GMO birch bark derived xylitol, which is naturally low glycemic. Norti states that source makes a big difference when you're talking about xylitol. Norti's xylitol sweetener doesn't come from GMO corn husks, leftover from production, which often contains additives in addition to the sugar-alcohol, xylitol. Medical-grade birch bark xylitol is processed with no additives, so it is xylitol in its purest form.

But high-quality xylitol isn't the only ingredient in which source quality plays a big role, pre and probiotics are also sourced precisely to Norti's standards.

Prebiotics, which give your gut bacteria a nutritional boost, are found naturally in many foods, but Norti chose chicory root sourced prebiotics for their chocolate bars because the prebiotic fibre inulin in chicory is also a digestive aid.

Probiotics, good gut bacteria, come in many forms, but because food scientists at Norti are sticklers for specifics, they chose soil-based probiotics. Soil-based probiotics, unlike other common probiotics, do not have to be refrigerated to stay alive, so you're getting the greatest possible probiotic count when you eat Norti's chocolate.