Teffola Bites: From idea to reality

Teffola Bites took 2+ years to get into your hands! The idea first came to me in September of 2020. I had this inkling of an idea and ran to Kroger for dates. I put coconut, almonds, maple syrup and oats into a food processor with the dates then rolled them into little mini truffles and coated them in chocolate. They weren’t that great but I saw the potential. Looking at the ingredients, it didn’t take me long to realize this might be the on-the-go solution of Teffola I’d been looking for!

There was a lot going on in 2021 and this idea took a backseat until July when I had the opportunity to try out my idea in a manufacturing space not my home kitchen. We took some of our chocolate charm, mixed it with dates and added chocolate chips on a whim. Went home with boxes of samples to send friends. But I kept eating them. Like in the car, for breakfast, that little sweet something I need after lunch that’s still healthy - they checked all the boxes. And the best part? They didn’t hurt my jaw when I ate them. Or get stuck in my teeth like other bars did.

I got more excited but looking at what it would take to properly produce these and get them into the world? I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone in so many areas of my life I think I hit a breaking point where I couldn’t take this risk.

A year passed and it became clear that these needed to be added to our line up. I debated flavor combinations and did flavor tests at home trying to mimic the machine we’d use. This involved me standing on a measuring cup trying to compress the mixture in a pyrex underneath it into a solid mass. It wasn’t pretty but got the job done!

I wrote the formulations for the 3 flavors based on those little experiments and we did a final test run for them in September 2022. They were perfect. I didn’t need to tweak anything. Next up was getting packaging and boxes designed, securing distributor partners, and in full transparency making sure we had the funds to launch a new product line. We can’t sell something until it exists and creating something from nothing has its costs.

And now here they are <3 Days contemplating logos. Weeks of ingredient sourcing. Months of staring at spreadsheets with pricing making sure it all made sense. Years of experience for that recipe development.

I hope you love them as much as the Teffola Team does! Try out the the Sampler here! 

Stay bold & brave,

Claire